With the arrival of monsoon, cases of snake bite have increased whereas primary and community health centres are completely lacking the stock of anti snake venom mainly due to non supply of the medicine from the headquarters where officials assign the reason to not getting supply from the manufacturing company.
Notably, Bastar being a densely forested area and having hilly terrain registers large number of snake bite cases annually which increases during monsoon when due to moisture and rains snake come out of their hiding.
Meanwhile, this year the number of snakebite cases went up even before the arrival of monsoon as within the last one week more than half a dozen snakebite cases have been reported at Jagdalpur Medical College. On Friday itself, Bhupendra son of Durjan of Takraguda, laxman son of Jhitru of Salepal and Sawan Kumar of Palwa were admitted to medical college hospital and fortunately after getting the doses of anti snake venom they were declared out of danger but the situation of primary and community health centres in the district is not the same as people are forced to come to Jagdalpur from remote areas to save their lives.
According to doctor of Medical College Jagdalpur K R Mourya, here in medical college also just one hundred vials of anti snake venom is available in its store and hardly 2 dozen vials would be available in wards of the hospital which is much less than the requirement as Medical College receives snakebite cases from the entire Bastar division. He however said that order for purchase of anti snake venom has been placed with the Delhi located firm and option for local purchase is also open if the supply is delayed.