In Africa, danger creeps into homes and fields

The snake struck Beatrice Ndanu Munyoki, 11, as she sat on a small stone atop a larger one, watching over the family’s eight goats. She was carelessly running her fingers through the earth when she saw a red head peeking out from between the stones and felt a sharp sting on her right index finger.

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

As the day progressed, his finger grew darker, but the hospital in Mwingi, a small town in Kenya, had no antidote for this 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 knew they were going to take that part out now,” Mr Mutunga said, with tears in his eyes. Beatrice’s finger was amputated.

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

According to official estimates, around five million people are bitten by snakes every year. Around 120,000 people die and some 400,000 lose limbs due to amputation.