RENUKA Dengle, from a small village in Pune, was five months pregnant when the venomous ‘Saw-scaled Viper’ snake bit her while she was working at a farm a couple of years ago.

The 24-year-old woman’s relatives took her to a local exorcist and a couple of Government hospitals in the vicinity but she could not get proper treatment. As Dengle’s condition worsened, she was rushed to Vighnahar Nursing Clinic in Pune’s Narayangaon town.

The medical facility is run by a doctor couple who claim to have so far saved more than 5,500 snakebite victims. A lot of time was already wasted by the time the woman was brought to the hospital. She was in a bad condition with swelling all over her body, Dr Sadanand Raut, who and his wife are working on a ‘zero snakebite death’ mission.

“We immediately administered her an anti-snake venom and started the treatment. The woman responded and made a miraculous recovery. A few months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl,” he said. Terming snakebite as a rural hazard, Dr Raut said the World Health Organization (WHO) described it as the ‘most neglected tropical disease in 2018’ and their aim is to bring down snakebite deaths by 50 per cent by 2030.

“With 58,000 snakebite deaths in India every year, the country is leading in such casualties,” said Dr Raut, who is also a member of the WHO’s roster of experts for snakebite envenoming.

The doctor said he had come to Narayangaon to set up a heart and diabetes hospital, but got anxious after coming across the death of a girl by snakebite.

“My wife and I then decided to work towards the issue of snakebite, an everyday reality for those who living in rural parts of the country,” he said.