GHANAIAN CHRONICLE (Accra, Ghana) 26 October 07 Daboya Records Five Snake Bites (Pascal Kafu Abotsi)
Daboya: Five people have suffered serious snakebites in Daboya, a town in the West Gonja District of the Northern Region, some days after the floods had hit that part of the region. Four of victims have been discharged at the Tolon Clinic, forty kilometres from Daboya, after some days of admission, while the other one is still responding to treatment.
The operator of Ndewura Tavel and Tour, Mr. Mahama Muniru, who said he was the first person to relay the information of the flood disaster that hit Daboya through his brother at Joy Fm in Accra, alleged that the rains carried snakes and other reptiles from the rivers unto the main land from where they found their way into people's rooms and farms.
Mr. Muniru, who is a native of Daboya but resident in Tamale, pointed out that the community had not recorded any snakebite over the past six years and so the inhabitants were of the view that signs of the bites could be a worry to them.
Several parents had been sending their children to farms to see if they could harvest the rest of their crops not affected by the flood. Those children were prone to snakebites, as no preventive measures had been taken to check further bites.
Even though the community had a clinic, victims of the snake bites could not be treated there because there were no vaccines provided to take care of that.
They were, however, taken to nearby clinics for treatment.
The Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah (Rtd), had provided the community with two motorbikes and ten bicycles to help convey people in critical conditions to a nearby clinic.
He also gave out some assorted drugs to the people to take care of some of the diseases they had been exposed to as a result of the floods.
Mr. Quashigah promised to upgrade the clinic to a poly clinic, which would mean providing more infrastructure to enable residents of Daboya depend solely on their clinic for whatever disease that cropped up there.
The Chief Medical Superintendent of the Daboya Health Centre, Mr. Dawura Adams, said no death had been recorded as far as the snakebites were concerned.
He noted, "Before the flood, no victim of snakebite has been brought to the clinic for treatment for at least the four years that I have served in the clinic."
Mr. Dawura expressed worry over the unavailability of anti-snake syndromes in the clinic for the treatment of the ever-increasing snakebites in the community.
He observed that having those medicines at their clinic could help save the lives of a persons in critical situations who would had to be transported over some kilometres in order to receive medical attention.
The midwife at the clinic, Mrs. Soale Mamuna Matilda, described the devastating condition under which they worked as very unfavourable. She said the mattresses in the clinic were so old that some pregnant women refused to use them whenever she wanted them to do so.
The Acting Northern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Seidu Korkor, told a team of journalists who had called on him that the anti-snake syndromes had been bought and that they would be distributed by Friday.
He observed that the people needed immediate attention and the health service was also up to the task since they wanted to prevent deaths.
A tour of the Daboya town with the Northern Regional Transport Officer of the Ghana Health Service, Mr. Joseph Nicholas Arthur, indicated that bushes left unattended to, could easily attract snakes and other reptiles into the town.
This information came to light when a team of journalists from different media houses, who constitute the membership of African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) under the sponsorship of The Malaria Clinical Trials Alliance (MCTA), visited the affected areas of the town to assess the health state of the people after the disaster.
Daboya Records Five Snake Bites