MITHI, July 9: The people of Thar have urged the higher authorities of government to take notice of the deaths of a good number of Tharis every year due to snakebite and to establish a hospital at Mithi, particularly, to treat snakebite patients.

While talking to this correspondent on the telephone on Wednesday, the District Nazim, Tharparkar, Arbab Ataullah said being a sandy region, Thar is an abode of snakes, including vipers, which bite a considerable number of people every year.

He said most of the Basic Health Units and hospitals here usually run short of anti-snakebite vaccines as a result of which patients bitten by snakes who arrive from remote villages are unable to get the treatment required and die.

He said the supply of anti-snake vaccines to the health centres of Thar has remained erratic. Besides, it is inadequate. So the paramedics face a lot of problems in treating patients.

He said, therefore, it would be best if the government established a well-equipped hospital at Mithi to treat patients bitten by snakes.

It would be pertinent to mention here that the number of snakebite cases reported at government hospitals/Basic Health Units of Thar during the year 2001 was 2,163 of which 18 patients died.

The number of such cases during the year 2002 was 1,941 of which 11 patients died. For the first half of 2003, 646 snakebite cases had been reported of which three patients died.

A social worker of Thar, Vishan Thari, told this correspondent that as most of the villages of the district have not been provided electricity yet, the Basic Health Units of these villages are lacking in cold storage facilities for keeping anti-snakebite vaccines and patients have to be referred to other hospitals, which causes a lot of inconvenience.