From The Hospital To The Lab: How We Reported The Snakebite Scandal

Imagine that every time you go to work, youre put at risk of a disease that could kill you in 30 minutes. What if the only medicine that can save you isnt available in the first or second hospital you visit? And when you do track it down, it doesnt work.

Thats the stark reality faced by rural workers in sub-Saharan Africa, something my editor Fiona and I were growing to understand as we trawled along the coast of Kenya last year on a reporting trip. The disease we were looking into? Venomous snakebite.

First, we needed to learn the basics. And the person everyone said we needed to talk to was Eugene Erulu, a doctor with decades of experience treating snakebite. He was a hard man to pin down and it took the best part of two days plus several hours staring at the ceiling in his waiting room to get a word with him. But once he started speaking, his expertise was obvious.

It was devastating because the patients never got the correct antivenom, he told me in his office at Watamu Hospital, Kilifi County. He was describing repeated cases where the available antivenoms had been, in his opinion, useless. He named specific manufacturers whose drugs he refused to use.

We were especially struck by Erulus frankness. Most other people wed spoken to on the subject had carefully evaded questions or agreed to speak only off the record. But Erulu didnt flinch.