Egyptian village hunts down snakes after 1 death, 8 injuries

CAIRO – 15 July 2018: A 17- year-old boy lost his life early this month due to a snake bite in Minyat Assa’id village, Beheria governorate in North Egypt.

A number of villagers in Minyat Assa’id have been attacked by snakes during this summer; eight were injured.

The snakes are spread in different parts of the village due to the presence of some deserted places such as drainage canals, according to some villagers.

The injured are sent to Al Mahmoudia Public Hospital, which is eight kilometers away from the village, as there is no health unit inside the village, causing a lack of first aids and antitoxins. Mahmoudia Public Hospital treats those who are exposed to snake bites with anti-snake venom serum and Antihypertensives.



How residents of the village deal with snakes

The residents of the village hunted about 60 snakes during the last two weeks, in a very primitive way and have killed them, putting the villagers at risk. Some snake hunters from different villages came to offer help hunting the snakes.

People try to hunt snakes amidst crops and fields, especially in the hot summer, to prevent them reaching their houses, where most consist of one floor.


Picture: Residents of the village hunt the snakes/ CC ET

Snake-hunting professionals and experts said that hunting snakes requires professional ways to keep the hunters safe from snakes’ attacks.

Islam Maghraby, a snake hunter who came from another village to offer his help, said that the village needs excavators to remove the pile of sand that accumulated years ago and which is a habitat for snakes.


Hunting snakes: Eggs vs. Tuna

Beheira governor Nadia Abdo formed a specialized technical committee that includes representatives from Al Mahmoudia city local unit, directorates of veterinary medicine, health and agriculture, and professors from the Faculty of Agriculture at Damanhour University.

The committee ended up buying 5,000 eggs, and injected them with poisonous substances, the eggs were distributed inside terriers that may include the snakes and warned the residents about using these toxic eggs, Masrawy reported .

Unfortunately this was not successful, so they used snake traps. The traps consists of an empty deep barrel that has attracting odors for snakes such as toxic tuna, with a number of fixed empty pipes above the barrel.

Beheira governor Nadia Abdo said earlier this month in a telephone interview for “With Pen and Paper” TV program on Ten TV, that the snakes crisis should not worry citizens since snakes are in different parts of the country, and the one boy who lost his life in the village died because he stayed 12 hours at home before going to the hospital.



FILE - Beheira governor Nadia Abdo

Abdo told Egypt Today that the governorate will work on cleaning and disinfecting canals and drains in Minyat Assa’id village, and removing agriculture waste, cooperating with veterinarians and professors from the Faculty of Agriculture at Damanhour University, to prevent the spread of harmful reptiles, through chemical or biological ways.

She added that they are coordinating with Alexandria Poison Center Faculty of Medicine at Alexandria University to receive emergent cases, and provide Al Mahmoudia Public Hospital with the needed anti-snake venom serums.