Doc couple on mission to prevent snakebite deaths, bust myths

Pune: Renuka Dengle, from a small village in Pune, was five months pregnant when a venomous saw-scaled viper snake bit her while she was working at a farm a couple of years ago. The 24-year-old woman’s relatives took her to a local exorcist and a couple of local government hospitals but she could not get proper treatment. As Dengle’s condition worsened, she was rushed to Vighnahar Nursing Clinic—run by a doctor couple who claim to have so far saved more than 5,500 snakebite victims—in Pune’s Narayangaon town. As a lot of time has been wasted, the woman in a bad condition with swelling all over her body by the time she was brought in, Dr Sadanand Raut, who and his wife are working on a “zero snakebite death” mission, recalls.

“We immediately administered anti-snake venom and started treatment. The woman responded and she gave birth to a healthy baby girl a few months later,” he said. “With 58,000 snakebite deaths in India every year, the country leads in such casualties,” said Dr Raut, who is also a member of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) roster of experts for snakebite envenoming. The doctor had originally planned to set up a heart and diabetes hospital, but changed his mind after the death of a girl by snakebite. “My wife and I decided to work on snakebites—an everyday reality for those who living in rural parts,” he said.

As the topic was not taught at length during the medical course, they started researching and took the help of experts like noted tropical medicine expert Dr David Warrell and started treating people from rural parts of Junnar tehsil in Pune, he said. The initial challenge was to discourage people from visiting exorcists and faith healers as a lot of myths and misconceptions were attached to snakebites. “While making our hospital equipped with facilities like ventilators, defibrillators, antisnake venom doses and trained staff to treat patients, we stressed on busting myths and discouraged superstitious methods used in treating snakebites in rural areas,” he said. They have also been creating awareness among people that prevention is the key to avoiding snakebite incidents, he added.