In Africa, Danger Slithers Through Homes and Fields In Africa, Danger Slithers Through Homes and Fields

Venomous snakes bite millions of people worldwide each year, killing at least 120,000. Many of them are poor people in rural areas of Africa without easy access to treatment.

The snake struck 11-year-old Beatrice Ndanu Munyoki as she sat on a small stone, which lay atop a larger one, watching the family’s eight goats. She was idly running her fingers through the dirt when she saw a red head dart from between the stones and felt a sharp sting on her right index finger.

Never a crier, she ran to her father, David Mutunga, who was building a fence. He cut the cloth belt on her dress into strips with a machete, tied her arm in three places and rushed her to a hospital 30 minutes away on a motorcycle taxi.

As the day stretched on, her finger grew darker, but the hospital in Mwingi, a small town in Kenya, had no antidote for that kind of venom. Finally that evening in November 2023, she was taken by ambulance to another hospital and injected with antivenom.

When the finger blistered, swelled and turned black despite a second dose the next day, “I understood that they will now remove that part,” Mr. Mutunga said with tears in his eyes. Beatrice’s finger was amputated.

In Kenya, India, Brazil and dozens of other countries, snakes vie for the same land, water and sometimes food as people, with devastating consequences. Deforestation, human sprawl and climate change are exacerbating the problem.

According to official estimates, about five million people are bitten by snakes each year. About 120,000 die, and some 400,000 lose limbs to amputation.