Snake bite kills 9 in Gombe 291 admitted. (Page 2)

Gombe State government has confirmed that nine out of about300 patients  admitted for treatment of snake bite at the Snake Bite Treatment Centre attached to the Kaltungo General Hospital last month were dead as a result of shortage of drugs.
This follows non-provision of the anti snake venom drug by theFederal Ministry of Health.The  Centre, established by the state government due to rampant snake bite in the area, was taken over by the Federal Government in 1999, and transformed into a centre for the treatment of snake bite victims from eight Northern states, with the aim of making it a National Centre for DiseasesControl.Making the revelation while fieldong questions from newsmen, the Centre's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Abubakar Saidu Balla, said  from January to date, the Centre has received over 1600 patients from Adamawa, Borno, Bauchi, Jigawa, Gombe, Taraba, Plateau and Nassarawa states, as well as Abuja, out of which about 30 were dead.
Balla said the high rate of deaths recorded was as a result of non-availability of the anti snake venom, which wasusually administered free, because most of the victims were peasant farmers or cattle breeders who could not afford to pay for the drug which costs about N30,000.
He said  one dose of the anti snake venom produced by a team of   Nigerian and British Professors in Liverpool, at $45 per dose was enough to treat the patients because of its high efficacy, adding that "for now, we have no option than to ask the patient to buy the vales from open market.
Before now, a patient requires only a vale of the Echitab G or Echitab Plus to be cured,  but now, four vales of FAV AFRIQUE vaccine, the onlyavailable anti venom in the open market now. At the cost of about N7000 far vale. Over 20 patients absconded when they cannot afford the cost of the vales."

 
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