One snake bite too many…

Bohol-run hospitals to keep

Anti-venom in its inventory

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, Oct 18 (PIA)—Because one sacrificed life is one too many for Bohol, Governor

Erico Aristotle Aumentado is now making sure that no one now dies of snake or venomous animal bites

without getting an anti-venom.

In fact, the governor wants the anti-venom not just available but accessible to all and intends to keep these life-saving shots strategically stored in at least four province-owned hospitals.

This too, as Bohol mourns over the death of a kid, who got bitten by a venomous snake Tuesday, despite

the fact that Loon, where the biting incident happened, is less than an hour away from the apex hospital where the government keeps anti-venom in its emergency inventory.

Severely sorrowed by the pointless waste of young life, the governor has instructed the Provincial Health Office through officer in Charge Dr. Fruserma Mary Uy, to initiate the move to make the anti-

venom accessible not just in one facility in Bohol but in strategic province-owned hospitals.

Although anti-venom shots can be had from the Gallares Hospital, the governor believes that it is still way too far off from access to other areas that it would take considerable time for victims to get to the service hospital, losing critical time in the process.

In snake bites, time element is of extreme importance, Dr Uy said, even as she added that the scientific community discourages accessing other alternative ways of treating the bite, which is what usually happens.

In Loon, Bohol, kin of a kid who was bitten by a snake, took over 2 hours to get the victim to the hospital too late.

When the victim arrived, health professionals who failed to observe the presence of victim’s vital signs, noted that the vitals have collapsed and declared the patient dead on arrival (DOA).

Later, embalmers also notice the ‘faint’ pulse in the dead child, prompting them to recommend the sending of the child to Gallares hospital, where she was proclaimed DOA again.

For her part, Dr. Uy, who feels excited about the governor’s plan to have the anti-venom here, admitted

that from time to time, Bohol would have snake bites considering the region is in a tropical country, that snakes are part of the environment.

To this, getting the anti-venom strategically made available for Boholanos is a bold step, she admitted.

Gallares is some two hours away from the farthest town Ubay, and patient’s transport could still take some time that chances of saving a snake bite victim decreases in the moment of delay.

“We have to make the anti-venom available for Talibon, Carmen, Jagna, Catigbian,” the governor instructed the OIC PHO.

Moreover, Aumentado told the health officer, to keep a stock of the vaccines in these province-owned and operated facilities.

With the governor’s instructions, Dr. Uy said they started setting up the mechanism for the procurement as well as the keeping of the vaccines in the facilities.

“These are toxins that we need to have a toxicologist to keep these in stock, and the personnel to handle these have to be properly trained,” according to Dr. Uy.

The preparations as well as the procurement of the anti-venom forms the bulk of the task that the PHO would be immersed in the next few months.

And as the snake anti-venom can only be accessed from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine 

(RITM), these are not mass produced and do not also keep its potency over time.

“We do not need to keep them in bulk, just a few shots in strategic areas in Bohol, because these activated anti-venom have to be kept in the cold chain at the proper temperature and somebody has to oversee its storage and administration,” the PHO hinted. (RAHC/PIA_7/Bohol)

WORKS IN TEN MINUTES. Snake antivenoms are set to start working within the first 10 minutes and additional doses are added when needed. Although supplied by the RITM which conducts research on tropical diseases including tropical venom, the snake bite antivenom has to be injected into the snake bite victim to allow the activated immunoglobins to counter the effect of the toxin in the bite. This is what Gov Aumentado wants to keep strategic hospitals, to get the cure closer to victims anywhere in Bohol.