On a humid Thursday morning, the Ramathibodi Poison Center in Bangkok thrums with activity. Four staff members field roughly 130 emergency hotline calls every day. By 11 a.m., they have already answered 42. Some callers are worried they’ve consumed something toxic. Others are medical students seeking advice on treating overdose patients. But every day, several physicians call from across Thailand looking for advice on treating snakebite victims.
The nurses, pharmacists, and paramedics fielding the calls answer several questions: Is the snake in question venomous? Should they intubate the patient or simply dress the wound? Will it require an antivenom, and if so, where can they find it?
The center, which is one of two in Thailand, typically receives about a thousand snakebite-related calls a year. But over the past four years, that number has risen to about 1,500. More than half of them are about venomous species such as the king cobra, the Malayan krait, and the pit viper. Calls to the 24-... Read more
