Biratnagar, October 7:

The Koshi Zonal Hospital has stopped treatment for snake-bite after it found that the medicine it has received is sub-standard. The hospital receives 10 to 15 snake-bite patients everyday.

The hospital administration announced closure of the snake-bite treatment service after it received several complaints regarding the effectiveness and quality of the medicine the doctors there were using.

Suspicion arose over the quality of the anti-snake bite venom after the doctors in the hospital had to administer as many as 211 vials of anti-dote on a 25-year-old patient when just 25 vials of the medicine should have been enough. Normally, 25 vials of the anti-dote would effectively tranquilise the effect of the snake venom, said medical superintendent at the hospital Dr Shiva Adhikari.

Other patients were also found to have been administered as many as 100 vials of the anti-dote.

The government’s regional medicine stores had supplied the anti-venin serum at different government hospitals and army barracks.

Head of the Eastern Regional Medicine Stores, Narad Prasad Sahani said the information regarding the quality of the anti-venin serum has been forwarded to the authority concerned but there has been no such complaint from any other hospital regarding the same lot of supply of anti-dote manufactured by Bharat Serum and Vaccine Limited in Amarnath of India, which was procured through due tender process.

The letter written by the hospital administration to the authorities concerned regarding notification of halting the snake-bite treatment service and the efficacy and quality of the anti-dote supplied at the hospital has been dispatched to all concerned, said a hospital staffer.