Kiran Devi, whose husband died due to a snakebite while sleeping at home in Muzaffarpur in 2022. Snakebite envenoming is often considered a disease of the poor, as life-saving antivenom is often inaccessible to them. Photo courtesy: Ashutosh Kumar
Kiran Devi, whose husband died due to a snakebite while sleeping at home in Muzaffarpur in 2022. Snakebite envenoming is often considered a disease of the poor, as life-saving antivenom is often inaccessible to them. Photo courtesy: Ashutosh Kumar

Snakebites surge across Southasia amid rising heat, floods and habitat loss

Climate change is driving an increase in snakebites and envenomation deaths in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and beyond – and community-driven solutions are leading the fightback
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In Punjabi, they call avoiding a snakebite “kakh lagna”, denoting a narrow escape. Chaudhry Waqar Anwar, a 39-year-old journalist and farmer, said he has narrowly avoided being bitten three times in the fields around Gujranwala, in Pakistani Punjab.

Anwar recounted how snakes often hide under ready-to-harvest crops. Recently, one had its sights on his feet as he worked in a paddy field, but he killed it with a farm implement before it could bite him.

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