PESHAWAR, July 8: Scores of deaths take place every year in the Frontier due to scorpion stings, as there is a shortage of anti-venom medicine in the province, according to some experts.

“The species of scorpions found in the NWFP are extremely poisonous. Children below the age of five die the moment they get stung,” said a doctor. He said five children were recently brought to the hospital and all of them died.

He claimed that lack of anti-venom serum had led to the death of many people, especially children. Several doctors said that anti-venom vaccines were not available in the market which had further complicated matters for the affected people.

Experts said the United States had started supplying anti-venom serum to the Saudi government for American soldiers who were then engaged in Operation Desert-Storm. Later, the US helped Saudi Arabia in manufacturing its own anti-venom medicine for victims stung by scorpions.

They said they were acquiring a small quantity of anti-venom medicine through back-channels including friends who were doctors in Saudi Arabia. They said that only a few types of snakes in Pakistan were poisonous, but all of the scorpions were deadly.

An expert said that most of the Islamic countries had started manufacturing anti-venom vaccines for scorpion stings, but the National Health Institute, Islamabad, had failed to manufacture or import injections and vaccines. He added: “Not only this, but the government has not given permission for its import.”

He said that two children below five, who had been stung by scorpions, died this month at the children’s ward of the Khyber Teaching Hospital. “Their lives could have been saved if anti-venom vaccines were available at the hospital or in the market.”