Snakebite: 5,000 anti-venom vials arrive Nigeria

After one month of acute shortage of anti-snake venom (ASV), resulting in massive snakebite deaths across Nigeria, 5,000 vials of the ASV have arrived the country.
The ASV drugs, which arrived at the weekend, include EchiTAB G for the treatment of bites from carpet vipers, and EchiTAB Plus for venom from carpet viper, puff adder and black cobra.
EchiTAB G is produced by Micropharm Ltd, United Kingdom, while EchiTAB Plus is produced at Instituto Clodomiro Picado, University of Costa Rica.
The last tranche of the drug, supplied in August, was used up in September, throwing the treatment centres into chaos as victims massed in, following a sharp rise in snakebites occasioned by the on-going harvest season.
But Nandul Durfa, Managing Director, EchiTAB Study Group (ESG), representatives of the two foreign outfits manufacturing the drug in Nigeria, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday that the ASV crisis was over.
“We received 3,000 ASV vials from Costa Rica and 2,000 vials from the United Kingdom at the weekend; the acute shortage that culminated into massive deaths was unfortunate, but it is now over,’’ Durfa said.
Durfa, who had attributed the acute scarcity to “late placement of order by ESG”, said 10,000 additional ASV vials would soon be received to stabilise supply and guard against future ASV crisis.
He said the ASV was being shared to snake treatment centres with 700 vials already sent to Kaltungo General Hospital, Gombe, while Zamko Comprehensive Health Centre in Langtang, Plateau state, had received 500 vials.
More than 250 victims of snakebite died in the two centres within three weeks, at the peak of the acute shortage of the ASV last month.
He cautioned Nigerians against procuring the drug from anywhere outside the snake treatment centres, saying that criminals had taken advantage of the paucity to sell fake ASV to desperate victims.