Snakebite cases rise as floodwater recedes

KOCHI: Santhosh Kumar was cleaning his flood-hit house in Kerala’s Ernakulam district when he felt something bit his foot. He thought it was an insect and went to the local medical practitioner who applied a mixture around the bite mark. However, Kumar collapsed shortly afterwards and was rushed to a hospital where the bite was diagnosed as of a snake.

“Water had receded and there was a lot to be done. I was cleaning the house when I got bitten,” says Kumar, 53, who has admitted to the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Little Flower Hospital in Angamaly.

The hospital, known to treat snakebite cases for the past 40 years, has got more than 50 cases so far during the floods. “Thankfully we have enough supply of anti-venom used to treat snake bite cases. Out of all the cases, some 70 per cent were dry bites, which means the snake didn’t release venom. Only the rest of the cases were venomous bites” says Dr Joseph K Joseph of the hospital.

After several cases of snakes being found inside houses from where water had receded, Vava Suresh, a well-known snake catcher, was brought in.

“I got some 22 calls but most of them were not poisonous snakes. (I) caught five cobras in different parts of Ernakulam on Tuesday,” says Suresh. A number of calls he gets are out of panic, he says and adds that he has attended to over 50 cases ever since the floods started in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Ernakulam districts.

“People are scared even at the sight of a hammer-head worm. They think that’s a poisonous snake and call me in panic,” says Suresh, referring to a photo that was shared widely on social media. “They are so harmless,” he says.