PUNE, 12 December 2007 — The Indian state of Maharashtra performs poorly when it comes to battling diseases. It has the largest number of people with diabetes in the country. It is a hotbed for tuberculosis, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. It also has the largest number of snakebite deaths: 360 last year out of a total of 37,000 bites, according to government statistics on bites treated at public hospitals. Over 70,000 of the 300,000 Indians that get bitten by snakes each year die. This figure does not include the thousands of snakebite victims that go to private hospitals for treatment.
In some remote villages in Western Maharashtra, it often takes the government up to 24 hours to transfer a snakebite victim to a government hospital, said a health department official on condition of anonymity. Apart from Maharashtra, the other worst affected states are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Assam and West Bengal.
Many snakebite victims die due to inadequate first aid or unavailability of the Anti Snake Vaccine (ASV) at government hospitals. The most common venomous snakes in India are the Indian Cobra, the Krait Cobra, the Russell’s Viper, the Saw Scaled Viper and the Hump Nose Pit Viper. (These are not the only venomous snakes in this enormous, predominantly tropical country.)
Federal Health Minister A. Ramadoss recently said a lot still has to be done to curb snakebites, which mostly affect the poor. Ramadoss said the federal government was discussing the problem with the World Health Organization.
One of the major problems in treating snakebite victims is the costly ASV vaccine that -— at a cost of 400 Indian Rupees -— is beyond the reach of most poor patients. Pharmaceutical anti-venoms are expensive to produce, a process that includes harvesting venom from snakes.
A remedy to tackle this problem came in the form of herbal drug Pinak, manufactured by a Satara based pharmaceutical company following research and successful trials by Dr. Gita Pawar. Patients treated with Pinak not only survived but also fully recovered. Pinak has yet to be approved by the Indian government. Pinak was not only cheap compared to the costly ASV, but the drug, which doctors have nicknamed the “miracle drug,” was recorded to be so effective that a single dose of the drug, the world’s only oral sublingual tablet, could cure or prevent deaths instantly as compared to ASV, which takes longer to act against snake venom.
Several snakebites patients being treated at various hospitals who failed to respond to ASV treatment, were administered Pinak and recovered. A more popular case of the success of Pinak was when a relative of a state cabinet minister who despite being administered 42 doses of ASV, did not stabilize and remained in critical condition. As a final attempt, doctors administered 10 tablets of Pinak to the patient who responded positively and recovered fully in two days.
The federal and state government have the remedy to snakebites in their hands. Pinak has proved to be successful in curing and preventing deaths due to snakebites and if the government approves the drug, it will free Maharashtra of one of its problems.
