As the world warms, the risk of snakebites is rising
Why this matters: environmental and climate reporting with long-term consequences.
On a humid Thursday morning, the Ramathibodi Poison Center in Bangkok thrums with activity. Four staff members field roughly 130 emergency hotline calls every day. By 11 a.m., they have already answered 42. Some callers are worried they’ve consumed something toxic. Others are medical students seeking advice on treating overdose patients. But every day, several physicians call from across Thailand looking for advice on treating snakebite victims. The nurses, pharmacists, and paramedics fielding the calls answer several questions: Is the snake in question venomous? Should they intubate the patient or simply dress the wound? Will it require an antivenom, and if so, where can they find it? The center, which is one of two in Thailand, typically receives about a thousand snakebite-related calls a year. But over the past four years, that number has risen to about 1,500. More than half of them are about venomous species such as the king cobra, the Malayan krait, and the pit viper. Calls to the 24-hour hotline peak during the rainy season when floods force snakes from their habitats and into closer contact with humans. “We have been established for 30 years, since 1996, and we have never closed our poison center,” said Dr. Satariya Trakulsrichai, a toxicologist, internist, and head of the poison center. Patients bitten by a venomous snake can suffer debilitating and long-lasting health consequences, including chronic nerve pain, kidney disease, and necrosis. The center runs an outpatient clinic for such patients every Friday. Every year, millions of people are bitten by snakes. The most recent global count by the World Health Organization, or WHO, found that as many as 5.4 million people are bitten annually. Half develop envenoming — the medical condition that occurs when snake venom enters the body and triggers a toxic reaction. Approximately 500,000 are left with permanent disabilities, and 138,000 people die. Asia is the epicenter of snakebites, where up to 2 million peop