CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Friday announced that snake bites have been declared as a notified disease under the Tamil Nadu Public Health Act, 1939, becoming only the second state in India after Karnataka to do so.
The state reports around 13,000-16,000 snake bite cases in the official portal every year, 75% of which are from non-venomous snakes, said Dr T S Selvavinayagam, director of public health and preventive medicine.
This move is in line with the Union Health Ministry’s action plan to reduce snake bite deaths by half by 2030, an official release said, adding that it would also improve data collection, clinical infrastructure and allocation of anti-snake venom to hospitals. The World Health Organisation has also launched a global initiative to control snake bite-induced deaths and disabilities, the release said.
A Government Order was issued by the state’s health department on November 4 and a notification was later published in the Tamil Nadu government gazette, mandating all public and private hospitals to compulsorily notify snake bites in the Integrated Health Information Platform-Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IHIP-IDSP).
The release further stated that snake bites cause high morbidity and mortality in agricultural workers, children and vulnerable sections living in snake-endemic regions. It also noted that there is a significant gap between snake bites reported and deaths caused. Notifying it as a disease would help in enacting comprehensive prevention and treatment strategies for snake bites, the release added.
Snake bite envenomation is an acute life-threatening medical condition. It is also a preventable public health condition often faced by rural populations in tropical and subtropical countries.
In February, Karnataka became the first state in the country to make snake bites a notified disease.