A new menace – Russel's viper

The incident of Zahid Pramanik, a peasant of the Pangsha upazila in Rajbari district, being bitten by a Russel's viper (the snake's Bengali name is Chadrabora) and then saved following treatment at a Kushtia hospital, was recently reported in the print media. However, such reports of snakebite, especially by this particular type of snake, have drawn the attention of many. This is despite the fact that snakebite is a common experience in Bangladesh and, according to recently released study findings, every year more than 400,000 people are bitten by snakes and, of them, over 75,000 cases are fatal. And the victims are mostly village people. However, most village people are familiar with the local varieties of snake. But this particular type of snake, the Russel's viper, had so far been extremely rare in Bangladesh. In the neighbouring India about half of all the snakebites are attributable to Russel's viper, whose zoological name is Daboia russelii, a very a deadly variety. Bangladesh National Guideline for Management of Snakebite says that there are about 100 species of snake in Bangladesh, of which 37 are venomous. They include sea snakes, cobras, kraits and six types of Pit viper and one Russel's viper.

In fact, this particular kind of snake (Russel's viper or Chandrabora) has faded from public memory in this part of the world for over a century. Small wonder that the peasant, Pramanik, of Pangsha, could not recognise the snake. And thanks to his presence of mind that he brought with him the dead snake (which he killed after it bit him) to hospital. Otherwise, the doctors would not be able to apply the correct antivenom to treat his condition as our hospitals lack the facility to conduct serology test for snake venoms to identify their type and origin.

So, the Kushtia hospital doctor could give proper treatment to save Pramanik's life. According to ophiologists, an adult Russel's viper is about five feet long. But the one that attacked Pramank was rather small. So, it might well be a viper hatchling.

But then why is this sudden surge in the number of snakebites from Russel's viper? The victims are mostly people working in the fields. In Pramanik's case, he was working in a jute field. Experts believe, this particular variety of snake, which somehow migrated from neigbouring India during the monsoon floods, has been growing in number in Bangladesh. And with most natural snake habitats being destroyed through deforestation and agricultural lands, these snakes have now made the crop fields their breeding grounds. That is also convenient for them because their favourite prey, rats, feed on crops and prefer to live in the farmlands.

So, unless urgent measures are taken to destroy the new breeding grounds of Russel's viper, the village people, the peasants, in particular, will be exposed to the danger of more frequent deadly snakebites.  The problem has been further compounded by the absence of arrangements to treat snakebite victims at the upazila-level public hospitals. Pramanik's experience is a case in point as the Pangsha upazila hospital failed to come to his aid. And it is not the upazila-level hospitals alone, some district hospitals, too, lack such facilities. Another serious lacuna lies in the field of research on snake venom and domestic facilities to develop drugs (antivenoms) against snakebite.

Thankfully, the government initiated a Venom Research Centre in collaboration with different local and international organisations in 2018. Hopefully, this Centre will be able to develop drugs against the bites from 37 types of venomous indigenous snakes, including, of course, the antivenom for Russel's viper.

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