A four-year-old girl in a village in Cirebon, West Java tragically succumbed to the venom of one of the most dangerous species of snake in Indonesia on Wednesday evening.
According to reports, on the evening of Friday, Feb. 7, Adila Oktavia was asleep in her room when a snake bit her in the leg. Her cries woke her parents, 24-year-old Rusmiati and 27-year-old Mukmim, who spotted a Malayan krait with black-and-white horizontal stripes slithering away from their daughter.
Adila, who couldn’t stop vomiting, was then taken to the Gunung Jati Regional Hospital in the city of Cirebon. Despite being given antivenom, she slipped into a coma on Saturday morning.
Four days later, on Wednesday evening, Adila sadly passed away.
Adila’s death comes amid increasing reports of snake sightings and bites throughout Indonesia in recent months as most of the country enters rainy season, during which time snakes tend to come out of hibernation to feed and mate.
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The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) says that one way to keep snakes out of our homes is to keep it clean and use fragrant floor cleaners as snakes dislike strong smells. Crucially, a dirty house can attract mice, which, in turn, attract snakes.
Should you get bitten by a snake, LIPI says you should follow the World Health Organization’s Guidelines for the Management of Snake Bites (which you can read here) and get yourself to a hospital that provides snake antivenom.
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