Load shedding partly to blame for snake anti-venom shortage
The severe shortage of snake anti-venom in the country has been described as a crisis.
The African Snakebite Institute says for more than six months, it's been impossible to buy the treatment.
It says veterinarians, who often treat dogs for serious snakebites, have been particularly hard hit.
CEO Johan Marais says they have been inundated with calls from doctors, hospitals and vets.
"The anti-venom is made by the South African Vaccine Producers, which is part of our national health laboratories and the reason given is power outages and difficulty in obtaining certain imported products that are part of the processes.
"We don't really know what's going on. There has been a lot of staff changes and I have no doubt that they are doing their utmost to try and correct this, but it sounds like another Eskom story to me."
He says producers must find a solution.
"They have got to get production back to full capacity, they have a massive backlog. Exactly how many vials I do not know. I don't think its practical to solve this problem within a month or two. I think it is going to take a long period of time.
"Fortunately, we are coming towards the end of the snakebite season - temperatures are beginning to drop, so we will see a drop in the number of snakes encountered and the number of people getting bitten, but we are not out of the woodwork yet."
