Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu released a book on the snakes found in Himachal Pradesh on Friday.
The book, titled ‘Snakes of Himachal Pradesh’, was compiled and edited by the principals of the State Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Omesh Kumar Bharti and DD Bisht.
The Chief Minister evinced interest in the documentation on venomous and non-venomous snakes in Himachal Pradesh and said efforts were required to create awareness among people in the state on this issue.
The book contains photographs of snakes at different locations in Himachal Pradesh, which have been documented and identified by a team of researchers led by Anita Malhotra, a molecular biologist from Bangor University in the United Kingdom, of which Bharti was a part.
The team caught snakes in the jungles of Himachal Pradesh with the permission of the wildlife wing of the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department and took their venom and DNA samples before leaving them back in the same habitat.
The DNA and venom samples of the Himachal Pradesh snakes are being tested in the laboratory at Tejpur University, Assam, with the help of Archana Deka from the department of molecular biology.
Bharti said the book has been published with funding from the National Health Mission (NHM) in Himachal Pradesh.
The snakes in the state have been identified to create awareness among people about snakes found in Himachal Pradesh through this book.
The team is also doing a bigger study through tie-ups with advanced labs in the country to know whether the anti-snake venom available on the market can neutralise the venom of snakes in Himachal, Bharti informed the Chief Minister.
Padma Shri awardee in medicine, Bharti is on the panel of the World Health Organisation (WHO) for snakebite management and is the National Principal Co-investigator of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study on snakebite incidence in the country, which involves 13 states across the country, including Himachal Pradesh.