Ineffective anti-snake vaccines on the market have led to the death of 10 people, including a teacher, at the Wa West District Hospital in the Upper West Region.
Hospital authorities say they have not received anti-snake vaccines from the Ghana Health Service for some time now, a situation that compel doctors to prescribe it for patients to buy from pharmacies within Wa.
According to hospital officials ,the 10 who succumbed were among a total of 50 persons brought to the facility and received between five and 10 doses of the vaccine but that could not save them, explaining that this was due to the ineffectiveness of the anti-snake vaccine.
“The anti-snake [vaccine] we were using was not very efficacious and we could use about 5 to 10 and still the patient could not improve,” Medical Superintendent of the Wa West District Hospital, Dr Benjamin Aminyuure told journalists.
In a bid to salvage the situation Dr. Aminyuure says that,”management took it upon themselves to look at getting an anti-snake vaccine that is very effective”
Consequent to that, he said since the beginning of 2019, they have procured anti-snake vaccines from Tamale “which is very effective”.
“If you use one or two vaccines of the anti-snake, the patient recover immediately” Dr. Aminyuure added.
The Upper West Regional minister Alhaji Alhassan Sulemana has now invited the hospital authorities for a meeting next Tuesday to discuss how to resolve the issue
“…I promised that we are not going to sit with it; we are going to take it up immediately,” he said, adding “I’ve even asked them to come to my office by Tuesday next week so that we can take it up from there”.
