Those who have seen the BBC serial “Speckled Band” know how deadly a snake could be; hence this title.
Every year, thousand die due to poisonous snakebites in Odisha; many are reported, others go undiagnosed and unreported. We have anti-snake venom for four common land venomous snakes of India, they are Cobra (Naga), Russel’s Viper (Boda), Saw-Scaled Viper (small Boda) and Kraits (Chiti). Kraits are of different colours and size, but in Odisha we have Banded Kraits and Common Kraits (Kaudia Chiti, Speckled Band). Snakebites are the highest during the end of summer and beginning of rainy season or, at times, due to unseasonal rains. We have transgressed into their territory by building houses and roads, as a result of which they come out of their hiding and bite us.
The venom is used by the snake to paralyse its victim so that it becomes easier for it to swallow it. The venom also has digestive properties for the snake. They bite human beings for self-protection; and majorities of snakebites are accidental. All sea snakes are highly poisonous but seldom bite.
The problems with snakebite and snakebite poisoning are different. They are not synonymous. A person may be bitten by a poison snake but may not die due to many factors: (1) biting over a thick cloth or on the shoe; (2) biting after a fight or a meal; (3) broken teeth; (4) dry bite. We call a bite as dry bite when no venom has entered the victim’s body.
Many die due to fright, shock, running after the bite and not coming for treatment in time. People have wrong conceptions about snakes; hence, they go to quacks and snake-charmers and arrive very late in hospitals and blame the doctors and authorities. A full-grown cobra and a King Cobra injects a huge amount of poison which is enough to kill a horse; and the time taken to kill a human being may be as short as fifteen minutes to one hour. Running after the bite hastens death as the poison spreads faster and reaches the brain and other vital organs.
Krait bite kills a person slowly but surely as the bite is usually less painful compared to vipers and cobras. Krait snake (Chiti) bites without provocations whereas cobra gives a warning before a bite.
The only treatment to neutralise the poison is by injecting anti-snake venom (ASV), which is in short supply due to various reasons. A majority of snakebite victims die due to respiratory failure and some due to internal bleeding and shock. The treatment is highly specialised and a majority of doctors are not trained in snakebite and respiratory care. Most of our victims of snakebite first go to Government-run Primary Health Centres where limited or no stock of ASV is available and there is no electricity or inverters to run a ventilator at the time of need which is required for respiratory support.
The doctors in peripheral villages and headquarters hospitals must be given a short course of training on how to put a tube in trachea (respiratory pipe) and connect it to an Ambu Bag or ventilators before shifting him or her to a higher centre. Many might not know that an elder sister of one our ex-Prime Minister died due to snakebite in a Uttar Pradesh village without any medical treatment.
From several years of experience in a tribal belt of Odisha, many doctors will agree that many lives can be saved by public awareness, preventive measures and timely shifting the victim to a proper place. Probably, some celebrity may earn crores by projecting these deaths of innocent victims as doctor’s negligence or the Government’s callous attitude or something else. Before that, our public must try to do something because healthy people die every year due to snakebites.
Our MlAs are so cowardly that they did not attend the Assembly for days together just because someone told them that a snake had been spotted in the vicinity of the Assembly Hall, whereas our villagers spend their life amongst snakes, bears, rapists, thieves and ruffians. Hope this message reaches the people and the administrators so that many valuable lives can be saved by timely interventions in future.
(Dr Satpathy, a former Joint Director, SAIl, lives in Bhubaneswar. sanjoysatpathy@yahoo.com)