Bihar residents battle monkey menace

The rising incidents of out-of-control simians raiding agriculture farms, invading homes and attacking people have created panic in Darbahanga and Madhubani districts of Mithila region in north Bihar and Bhojpur in western part of the state.

“The situation is very scary. The list of patients visiting government health facilities with monkey bite is increasing every day,” said Dr Satish Kumar Sinha, deputy superintendent of sadar hospital at Ara in Bhojpur district, 55km west of Bihar capital Patna.

“On an average, five to ten patients come to Ara sadar hospital for anti-rabies vaccination,” Sinha said, adding that he had to recently spend Rs 60,000 on erecting an iron grille gate at his Mansarovar Colony house on Hospital Road for safety from the “rampaging monkeys”.

Dr Chitraranjan Roy, head of preventive and social medicines at Darbhanga Medical College Hospital, 130 km north of Patna, said the government-owned health facility had been receiving four to five case of monkey bite daily. The figure in the district could be much higher as many patients also visited the sadar hospital and private nursing homes for treatment, he said.

A senior forest official at Darbhanga said the department was neither suitably equipped nor had the requisite expertise to contain the monkey menace, a statewide phenomenon.