No stock of anti-snake venom at RMCH

Patients have to buy the medicine from outside at high prices. Lack of the medicine affects treatment. At times their life is endangered if the medicine is not available in time, hospital sources said.

Hey said around 60 snake-bite patients were admitted to the hospital in last 35 days and eight of them died.

The flow of such patients increase in the rainy season, they added.

Taking the opportunity, some drug sellers hoard the essential drug and charge prices at will, attendants of some patients told this correspondent yesterday.

The price of foreign-made ASV is Tk 300 to Tk 350 while drug traders charge Tk 800 to Tk 850, they said.

Doctors at the hospital said life of a patient becomes endangered if ASV is not injected within 24 hours of snakebite. Patients coming from rural areas run high risk as most of them reach the hospital late after taking treatment by quacks.

Dr Quazi Tariqul Islam said ASV is not effective of injected 24 hours after the snakebite. He could not say when ASV will be available at the hospital.