The scene is a little cold in the back. Within hours, thousands of scorpions emerged from their den. And more than 500 people had to be hospitalized.The phenomenon was triggered by very violent storms with heavy rains, the most violent for eleven years in this city of a million and a half inhabitants, located in a magnificent site on the banks of the Nile, in the south of Egypt. The scorpions, who hate water, have been dislodged from their burrows in the desert dunes around them, and they have sought refuge in the streets and in the houses, a question of survival. Some locals did not spot them, first because they were fighting the floods themselves (over 100 houses were destroyed in Aswan) and also because scorpions are usually invisible and inactive at this time. season. Several people suddenly found themselves surrounded by the animals. And hospitals in Aswan have therefore seen hundreds of people disembark with injections. It was necessary to resort urgently to the stocks of anti-venom. Here again, a phenomenon of unprecedented magnitude.
In addition, these scorpions are very dangerous: it is a variety called Androctonus, also nicknamed “killer of man.“. All is said. Yellow in color, 8 to 10 cms long and a potentially fatal venom for children or the elderly. Without going so far as to cause death, the bite causes fevers, vomiting, respiratory or heart problems, and severe pain in adults. The authorities claim that no one was killed in the end, even though Egyptian social networks put the figure at four.
And there would therefore also be a link with global warming. On the one hand, the increasingly intense summer droughts favor the reproduction of these animals in the desert areas around the Nile. The scorpion is particularly resistant to heat and therefore adapts perfectly to rising temperatures. On the other hand, warming, as we know, is also accompanied by an increase in the frequency of extreme weather phenomena, such as sudden floods. So the scene is called to repeat itself as much as the scorpion evolves very well in an environment inhabited by men, in particular on the outskirts of cities, unlike, for example, the snake which tends to flee human presence. Egypt has 24 species of scorpions, not all of them are as dangerous as the Androtocnus, but their numbers are steadily increasing.
Egypt is not the only one to be confronted with this upsurge of scorpions. The phenomenon potentially concerns the whole of North Africa: Algeria alone has around 50,000 cases of sting per year, that’s nearly 150 per day. In Central America, Mexico is also severely affected. The good news is that these bites are now rarely fatal: anti-venoms exist in number and treatment is increasingly rapid. Still in Algeria, for example, for 50,000 bites, there was no “than” 30 dead last year, mostly children. But anyway, suddenly seeing oneself surrounded by scorpions is not a very pleasant sight. We would gladly leave that to Indiana Jones.