washed up on a beach in Auckland’s Devonport<\/a> in February, he said, with “probably only fewer than 10 or 12 a year”.<\/p>\n“So it\u2019s, again, very rare but obviously, we would treat any bite \u2013 an actual bite \u2013 to a person as something that could be potentially serious.<\/p>\n
“If you come across a snake, obviously don\u2019t get close to it. Don\u2019t interact with it. Don\u2019t touch it. Call the Department of Conservation to report it and stay away from it.”<\/p>\n
Pomerleau said in a situation where someone has been bitten, they should seek medical attention for observation. <\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Ozzy Osbourne dies, a worrying find on Rakiura Stewart Island, and new Coke coming. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
“Not every bite means someone will be envenomed. They need to be observed for the development of any signs or symptoms and can be treated appropriately as the case may require.” <\/p>\n
He said wh\u0101nau wanting to stock up on anti-venom medicines as a precaution would be hard-pressed to find any at their local pharmacy.<\/p>\n
“None of these medicines are available for over-the-counter use; they\u2019re all medicines that would be used in a hospital setting under the care of a physician,” he said. <\/p>\n
“There\u2019s nothing people can go out and buy at the pharmacy or to have at home and use.”<\/p>\n
And while it may seem like a blanket cure-all, Pomerleau said anti-venomwas just part of a treatment “in some cases”. <\/p>\n
\u201cNot every case is going to require antivenom, and the antivenoms themselves are not necessarily lifesaving,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
“Scientific evidence has shown over the years that in particular, when we\u2019re talking about the red back spiders or the katip\u014d spiders, that antivenom might not do a whole lot beyond kind of standard treatments that we\u2019d give with pain medicines or muscle relaxers. <\/p>\n
“In that case, it\u2019s not necessarily lifesaving, but it might be part of treatment.”<\/p>\n
He said the \u201cbest thing\u201d anyone who believes they\u2019ve been bitten by a venomous spider can do is to call the Poisons Centre for help.<\/p>\n
The teams \u2013 which are available 24\/7 from anywhere in the country \u2013 can be contacted for advice at 0800 POISON (764 766).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aotearoa\u2019s status as a haven free of venomous snakes and creepy-crawlies is no longer thanks to an uptick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1313,64,63,137,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-14629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}