Presenting the drugs at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, stated that the donation was in response to the outcry from the people in the affected communities and as part of the Federal Government’s intervention effort in stemming the scourge, which had been ravaging the areas since August 2015.
The Minister, represented by an Assistant Director, Fatai Oyediran, who led a team of medical experts and environmental scientists from Federal Ministry of Health to Plateau State, informed that his team was in the state to confirm the complaint, assess the current status of the snakebite and carry out a sensitization and awareness campaign aimed at raising the bar in terms of prevention and control of the scourge.
He added that a survey to determine the most effective ways to control the incident within each locality would also be carried out by the experts.
Responding, the Plateau State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Kuden Kamshak Deyin, commended the Federal Government for its laudable assistance to the state.
Deyin further called on the Federal Government to decentralise the Zamko JUTH treatment centre and upgrade it to a research centre.He said this would reposition the centre to cope better with the big health burden the centre was saddled with.
Commenting, the Permanent Secretary of the Plateau State Ministry of Health, Pharmacist Abel Hamila Guyatan, appealed to medical experts to do justice to the snakebite challenge, noting that the whole geographical Plateau State was a snake endemic area.
Also speaking, the Medical Superintendent of the Zamko treatment centre, Dr. Titus Dajel, revealed that the centre treated between 80 and 120 snakebite casesper month and sometimes five cases were reported daily, particularly during farming seasons.
In view of this, Dr. Dajel stressed the need for the Federal Government to encourage local drug manufacturers so that the much needed ASV could be made available and easily affordable by patients who were mainly local farmers.He also lamented poor power supply and lack of adequate storage facility at the centre. These he maintained shortened the shelf life of drugs at the centre.
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