PATNA: Bihar witnesses deaths of around 4,500 people every year due to snake bites, majority of them are from extremely poor backgrounds. Bihar stands as the third in the country with the largest number of deaths caused by snakebites in India.
Sharing this figure at a public awareness event organised at Asia’s longest-running sonepur fair on Sunday, Aditya Vaibhav, the representative of ‘The Tricky Rescuer’, said : “ With a view to promoting awareness amongst Bihari masses on snakebites and post-bite response, a mass social campaign has been launched all over the state”.
Spelling out the objective of ‘The Tricky-Rescuer’, he said that it aims at saving snakes, as-well-as humans in case of conflicts by reducing the number of such occurrences.
Quoting figures of various research studies on the cases of snakebites, he said: “Five million snakebites occur globally each year, causing between 81,000 and 1.38 lakh deaths and nearly 4 lakh amputations and other permanent disabilities.
South Asia has the highest incidence of venomous snakebites in the world. Within the region, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka together constitute nearly 70% of global snakebite mortality”.
In Bihar, it is a sheer lack of prevention or a slew of post-snakebite steps; most of the victims die in state’s interiors than in urban landscapes. “Cobras, Kraits, Russell ’s viper and Saw Scale vipers are the commonly found venomous species of snakes, which bite the human-beings”.
He said: “Snakebites are exacerbated by ignorance. Let alone the illiterates, even most of those educated are unaware of crucial trivia. In a recent email survey that was conducted on 1,000 graduates, with equal participation of both males and females, in ten developing and developed countries it was found
that close of 870 individuals did not know what an antivenin is”.
Antivenin is the antiserum containing antibodies against specific chemicals, especially those in the venom of snakes, spiders, and scorpions.