Thousands die from snakebites every year in Kenya, where treatment is hard to find
LA TimesA herpetologist milks the venom out of a snake at Kenya Snakebite Research and Intervention Center in Nairobi, Kenya, on April 5. Overall in Kenya, about 4,000 snakebite victims die every year while 7,000 others experience paralysis or other health complications, according to the local Institute of Primate Research. “We are causing adverse effects on their habitats like forest destruction, and eventually we are having snakes come into our homes primarily to seek for water or food, and eventually we have the conflict between humans and the snakes,” said Geoffrey Maranga, a senior herpetologist at the Kenya Snakebite Research and Intervention Center. Maranga’s center estimates that more than half of people bit by snakes in Kenya don’t seek hospital treatment — seeing it costly and difficult to find — and pursue traditional treatments. “The current conventional antivenoms are quite old and suffer certain inherent deficiencies” such as side effects, said George Omondi, the head of the Kenya Snakebite Research and Intervention Center.
History of this topic
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