Sunday, July 13, 2025
  • Who’sWho Africa AWARDS
  • About Time Africa Magazine
  • Contact Us
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • Magazine
  • World News

Home » Special Report » It’s hard to find treatment for snakebites in Kenya, As Thousands of people are dying every year

It’s hard to find treatment for snakebites in Kenya, As Thousands of people are dying every year

June 21, 2024
in Special Report
0
540
SHARES
4.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By Zelipha Kirobi / AP

Mwingi, KENYA — Esther Kangali felt a sharp pain while on her mother’s farm in eastern Kenya. She looked down and saw a large snake coiling around her left leg. She screamed, and her mother came running.

Kangali was rushed to a nearby health center, but it lacked antivenom to treat the snake’s bite. A referral hospital had none as well. Two days later, she reached a hospital in the capital, Nairobi, where her leg was amputated due to delayed treatment.

The 32-year-old mother of five knows it could have been avoided if clinics in areas where snakebites are common are stocked with antivenom.

ReadAlso

Dozens Are Killed as Antigovernment Protests Erupt Across Kenya

We won’t let them get away with this’: Activists to sue Tanzania’s government over ‘sexual torture’

Kitui County, where the Kangalis have their farm, has Kenya’s second highest number of snakebite victims, according to the health ministry, which last year put annual cases at 20,000.

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.

ADVERTISEMENT

Residents fear the problem is growing. As the forests around them shrink due to logging and agricultural expansion, and as climate patterns become increasingly unpredictable, snakes are turning up around homes more frequently.

“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.

Climate change also can drive snakes into homesteads, he said, as they seek water in dry times and shelter in wet.

Maranga and his colleagues are part of a collaboration with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine to create effective and safe snakebite treatments and ultimately produce antivenom locally. 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.

Kenya imports antivenom from Mexico and India, but antivenom is usually region-specific, meaning a treatment in one region might not effectively treat snakebites in another.

Part of the work of Maranga and colleague Fredrick Angotte is extracting venom from one of Africa’s most dangerous snakes, the black mamba. The venom can help produce the next generation of antivenom.

“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.

The researchers estimate the improved conventional antivenoms will take two or three years to reach the market. They estimate that Kenya will need 100,000 vials annually, but it’s not clear how that much will be produced locally.

The research aims to make antivenom more affordable to Kenyans. Even when antivenom is available, up to five vials are required, which can cost as much as $300.

Meanwhile, the research center also does community outreach on snakebite prevention, teaching health workers and others how to safely coexist with snakes, perform first aid and treat those affected by snakebite.

The goal is to have fewer Kenyans suffer like Kangali’s neighbor, Benjamin Munge, who died in 2020 four days after a snakebite because the hospital had no antivenom.

It’s unlikely that snakes will move away from homes, Kangali’s mother, Anna, said, so solving the problem is up to humans.

“If the snakebite medicine can come to the grassroots, we will all get help,” she said.

Tags: KenyaSnakes
ADVERTISEMENT
Previous Post

Ultra-processed foods are killing millions — WHO report

Next Post

Macron and African leaders push for vaccines for Africa after COVID-19 exposed inequalities

You MayAlso Like

Special Report

Two Former Nigerian Leaders, Abdulsalami, Buhari Sick And Dying In London

July 12, 2025
Special Report

EXCLUSIVE: China Prison Force Organ Harvesting – “I was injected by doctors and when I woke, part of my liver and lungs had been removed”

July 7, 2025
Special Report

Inside China’s horrifying torture jails from gang-rape, human experiments and organ harvesting

July 7, 2025
News

In Senegal, luxury sheep shine at a beauty contest and fetch a high price

July 4, 2025
Agather Atuhaire and Boniface Mwangi addressing a press conference in Nairobi on 2 June. | Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters
Special Report

We won’t let them get away with this’: Activists to sue Tanzania’s government over ‘sexual torture’

June 29, 2025
Special Report

Pastor Amos Isah Spiritually Manipulated, Seduced My Wife – Former Church Protocol Officer Alleges

June 29, 2025
Next Post

Macron and African leaders push for vaccines for Africa after COVID-19 exposed inequalities

The Hira Cultural District in Makkah is among the must-visit landmarks for pilgrims. (SPA)

The sacred sites in Makkah and Madinah that Hajj pilgrims have a chance to experience

Discussion about this post

Enugu Announces Date for 2026 Tech Festival

The Real Story Behind Campaign to Silence Delta State Polytechnic Rector Emmanuel Achuenu

Two Former Nigerian Leaders, Abdulsalami, Buhari Sick And Dying In London

Revealed: Air India pilots’ final words to each other before crash

BRICS summit in Brazil tries to reinvent collective approach to world’s problems

Woman who had one-night-stand with man she met in nightclub is ordered by High Court to pay him £25,000

  • British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

    1238 shares
    Share 495 Tweet 310
  • Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

    1064 shares
    Share 426 Tweet 266
  • Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

    968 shares
    Share 387 Tweet 242
  • ‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

    902 shares
    Share 360 Tweet 225
  • Crisis echoes, fears grow in Amechi Awkunanaw in Enugu State

    735 shares
    Share 294 Tweet 184
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

April 13, 2023

Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

December 27, 2022
Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

September 22, 2023
‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

March 21, 2023
Chief Mrs Ebelechukwu, wife of Willie Obiano, former governor of Anambra state

NIGERIA: No, wife of Biafran warlord, Bianca Ojukwu lied – Ebele Obiano:

0

SOUTH AFRICA: TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE?

0
kelechi iheanacho

TOP SCORER: IHEANACHA

0
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

WHAT CAN’TBE TAKEN AWAY FROM JONATHAN

0

Former Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari dies at 82

July 13, 2025

Enugu Commissioner Dr. Prince Lawrence Ezeh Bags Award From University of Nigeria

July 13, 2025
London-bound Air India plane crashes moments after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport | PTI

Air India Crash: Suicide or Act of Terror?

July 13, 2025

FAA Warned In 2018 Of Boeing Engine Shutdown Risk But Air India Ignored Fuel Switch Advisory

July 13, 2025

ABOUT US

Time Africa Magazine

TIME AFRICA MAGAZINE is an African Magazine with a culture of excellence; a magazine without peer. Nearly a third of its readers hold advanced degrees and include novelists, … READ MORE >>

SECTIONS

  • Aviation
  • Column
  • Crime
  • Europe
  • Featured
  • Gallery
  • Health
  • Interviews
  • Israel-Hamas
  • Lifestyle
  • Magazine
  • Middle-East
  • News
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • Russia-Ukraine
  • Science
  • Special Report
  • Sports
  • TV/Radio
  • UAE
  • UK
  • US
  • World News

Useful Links

  • AllAfrica
  • Channel Africa
  • El Khabar
  • The Guardian
  • Cairo Live
  • Le Republicain
  • Magazine: 9771144975608
  • Subscribe to TIME AFRICA biweekly news magazine

    Enjoy handpicked stories from around African continent,
    delivered anywhere in the world

    Subscribe

    • About Time Africa Magazine
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    No Result
    View All Result
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
    • Politics
    • Column
    • Interviews
    • Gallery
    • Lifestyle
    • Special Report
    • Sports
    • TV/Radio
    • Aviation
    • Health
    • Science
    • World News

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.