Meet Dr Surajit Giri From Assam Who Is On A Mission To Ensure No-one Dies Of Snakebites

Guwahati: Dr Surajit Giri, a senior anaesthesiologist from Assam's Sivasagar district is on a mission to ensure that no one dies of snakebites.

According to a report by IndianExpress, Giri has cured more than 1,200 snakebite victims from across the state.

Following an incident, where he saw a young woman bitten by cobra died on the way while shifting her from a private hospital to bigger state-run medical college in Dibrugarh. At that time, Giri, who was in his mid-twenties, began his journey to become Assam's foremost snakebite specialist.

As per the report, Giri's first experience of treating a snake bike victim was in Sivasagar: a 50-year-old farmer who was bitten by a pit viper in 2008.

By then, Giri had been posted at a community health centre in Demow, where not just the lack of infrastructure was a problem but also people were loath to being administered antivenom.

"Those days people trusted faith healers, I had to literally beg victims to take antivenom. After some victims were cured, they started trusting my treatment," the IndianExpress report quoted Giri as saying.

Usually any patients with snakebites are kept under observation and administer antivenom — purified snake venom that acts against whole venom — once the patient shows symptoms.

Following his successful treatments, Giri's reputation grew fast. Notably, in 2008, a very few persons used to approach him for treatment but presently, he treats 60-65 patients every month.

Significantly, an average of 58,000 people die from snakebites annually. This adds up to nearly 50 per cent of global snakebite deaths.

"When a patient is bitten by a venomous snake, that person and his/her close ones are in utter state of panic. So to see that sense of relief in their faces when the patient recovers finally is the biggest satisfaction for me as a doctor," the report quoted him as saying.

In 2021, Giri and his team cured each 464 snakebite victims which were brought to the Demow community health centre. Of these 464 snakebites, 53 were bitten by venomous snakes.

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