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MANILA, Philippines — Noting that the Philippines is mostly composed of agricultural and rural areas, Senator Raffy Tulfo said there is a need for an adequate supply of antivenom in “crucial regional hospitals” of the country.
Tulfo is pertaining to antivenom for snake bites, particularly Philippine cobras.
In his privilege speech delivered on Monday’s plenary session, Tulfo said dwellers in Metro Manila might think that “snake stories” only happen in movies. But this is not the case, said Tulfo, as most Filipinos — especially in rural areas fear snakes as these can be deadly.
READ: King cobra sightings in Cebu City: Residents call for snakebite treatment in barangays
“Snake bite incidents are really rampant. In a study of the National Center for Biotechnology Information on the Health and Economic Impact of Snakebites in Asean countries published in 2022, there are about 13,377 snake bite victims per year in the Philippines, with 550 resulting in death, while others are amputated. But how accurate is this survey? This study is conducted by a foreign organization. We don’t have a local study or survey that our health agencies do themselves,” said Tulfo.
Tulfo then proceeded to tell snake bite scenarios he was recently made aware of.
Lack of antivenom supply
According to the senator, farmers in Isabela personally told him that one of their comrades passed away due to snake bite. Tulfo said the farmer bitten by a Philippine cobra was immediately brought to the hospital, but was not saved due to the lack of antivenom supply in the institution.
READ: What to do when bitten by a snake
Another incident, said Tulfo, transpired in February where a three-year-old child died in Catarman, Northern Samar due to a king cobra’s bite. A similar event took place in Toledo City in Cebu where two king cobras were killed by residents despite the Department of Environment and Natural Resource’s clear mandate not to kill cobras.
Despite the presence of deadly snakes in the country, Tulfo said the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine remains to be the lone supplier of cobra antivenom in the Philippines.
“This is a public health concern that we must address. It is very elitist that this matter is not given importance just because, we, in the metropolitan [area], do not feel the burden of snakebites,” Tulfo emphasized.
In 2012, then senator Miriam Defensor Santiago already urged the Senate to probe, in aid of legislation, the reported need to create an antivenom bank in all regional hospitals in the country.
More than a decade later, Tulfo noted that Filipinos are “still [turning] a blind eye” from the reality that people are dying from snake bites.