prasad1
Active member
An onslaught of fatal snakebite attacks is sweeping India and killing tens of thousands each year—and so far, the government’s response has been to ignore, trivialize, and cover up the crisis altogether.
A 2020 study, which was based on verbal autopsies, suggests that on average, close to 58,000 Indian citizens die each year due to snakebites. In contrast, the country’s government reports ridiculously low numbers: In 2018, the Health and Family Welfare minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey declared that only 689 snake-related deaths had occurred in India that year—a fraction of the figure referenced in the study, and one that any expert would quickly balk at.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doctors in the country also say that there is a lack of awareness among the masses about how to seek immediate help, which drastically increases causality numbers. “An overwhelming majority of the cases are asymptomatic, bitten by non-venomous snakes. Yet we have many casualties and morbidities because of lack of awareness” says Dr. Ramachandra Kumar, a government doctor from Nalanda Medical College and Hospital in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
“What we see is that the patients bitten by snakes suffer other injuries like cuts and bruises which aggravate the problem. In order to ooze out the blood, people make cuts around the snakebite area using whatever available accessories like knives and stilettos. They even apply pressure by tying cloth near the bite to stop blood reaching to other parts of the body," says Kumar, explaining that these DIY treatment methods often lead to further complications.
According to Visvanathan, without support from the government, there’s no end to India’s snakebite crisis in sight.
“The major problem with the snakebite is we actually lack data, we don’t have a baseline data and we don’t have the mechanism to capture the gravity of the problem,” he said. “The government, for some strange reason, is sitting on it.”
https://news.yahoo.com/india-ignori...e-085042370.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma
A 2020 study, which was based on verbal autopsies, suggests that on average, close to 58,000 Indian citizens die each year due to snakebites. In contrast, the country’s government reports ridiculously low numbers: In 2018, the Health and Family Welfare minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey declared that only 689 snake-related deaths had occurred in India that year—a fraction of the figure referenced in the study, and one that any expert would quickly balk at.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doctors in the country also say that there is a lack of awareness among the masses about how to seek immediate help, which drastically increases causality numbers. “An overwhelming majority of the cases are asymptomatic, bitten by non-venomous snakes. Yet we have many casualties and morbidities because of lack of awareness” says Dr. Ramachandra Kumar, a government doctor from Nalanda Medical College and Hospital in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
“What we see is that the patients bitten by snakes suffer other injuries like cuts and bruises which aggravate the problem. In order to ooze out the blood, people make cuts around the snakebite area using whatever available accessories like knives and stilettos. They even apply pressure by tying cloth near the bite to stop blood reaching to other parts of the body," says Kumar, explaining that these DIY treatment methods often lead to further complications.
According to Visvanathan, without support from the government, there’s no end to India’s snakebite crisis in sight.
“The major problem with the snakebite is we actually lack data, we don’t have a baseline data and we don’t have the mechanism to capture the gravity of the problem,” he said. “The government, for some strange reason, is sitting on it.”
https://news.yahoo.com/india-ignori...e-085042370.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma