Christian Mission Aid

A woman displays her swollen hand after she was bitten by a snake

Who would ever imagine that a country as dry and as famine ridden as South Sudan would find the downpour of rains a curse? Yet the rainy season from May to October is both a blessing and a curse to many residents, every year. While the rains enhance agricultural activities with various food crops thriving, thereby improving food security, other life threatening occurrences are also rife.

Apart from accidents such as drowning, this season sees an increase in the number of life threatening snakes and scorpions. Each year, numerous patients visit Christian Mission Aid (CMA) run health care facilities with snake bites and scorpion stings.

Six months heavy with child and in excruciating pain is twenty-year-old Nyaruoti Gatkuoth who was rushed into our clinic before the crack of dawn, early last week. The snakes of South Sudan had struck again, this time threatening not only the life of a mother, but also that of the child inside her. Nyaruoti’s right arm was bitten by a snake while she was a sleep. She, like many patients we have seen in the last few days, had swollen skin filled with blisters; another case of a snake bite.

“We did all we could to save Nyaruoti, cleaning the snake bite with soap and water and giving her antibiotics and  intravenous fluids that help dilute the poison in her body. However, no one could identify the type of snake that had bitten her,” says CMA’s Agnes Alushwa, working in our Primary Health Care Center (PHCC) in South Sudan. “Snakes hibernate during the hot season mostly in cracks in the soil and in holes, then come out during the rainy season in search of food. Most of the patients visiting our clinics are attacked in their houses and on paths that have tall grass,” adds Agnes.

Some residents of South Sudan still practice animism and idol worship, and therefore do not kill snakes. Most other South Sudanese are however terrified of snakes because they know the life threatening dangers of being bitten by one.

A swollen hand of a victim of a snake bite

This year’s incidences seem worse than the past years’. We expect to see more cases of snake bites and insect stings since the rainy season has just begun. The cold and wetness of the season brings out snakes from their hiding places. The PHCCs currently need stocks of anti-venom to help reduce the risk of death. Most people die within 8 hours of a snake bite if not treated with an anti-venom.  One dose of anti-venom costs US$55.