{"id":272694,"date":"2026-02-04T00:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T00:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/272694\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T00:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T00:28:11","slug":"ifunanya-nwangene-singer-and-the-voice-nigeria-contestant-dies-after-being-bitten-by-snake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/272694\/","title":{"rendered":"Ifunanya Nwangene, singer and \u2018The Voice Nigeria\u2019 contestant, dies after being bitten by snake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abuja, Nigeria
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Ifunanya Nwangene, a budding singer who captivated audiences with her performance of Rihanna\u2019s \u201cTake a Bow\u201d on \u201cThe Voice Nigeria,\u201d has died from a snake bite. She was 26.\n <\/p>\n

\n The incident occurred at her home in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, on Saturday when she was bitten on the wrist by a cobra while sleeping, according to Sam Ezugwu, the leader of the Amemuso Choir, of which she was a member.\n <\/p>\n

\n Footage circulating on social media shows a snake handler removing a medium-sized snake from her apartment. Two snakes were extracted in total, Ezugwu said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cShe died in my hands,\u201d said her closest friend, Paschal Nworgu.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nworgu told CNN he was by her bedside at the hospital she visited after a nearby clinic, where she\u2019d initially sought treatment, informed her that they had no antivenom.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nworgu said that he\u2019d arrived at the hospital, Federal Medical Center, Jabi, with Ezugwu at around noon on Saturday, two hours after receiving a WhatsApp message from Nwangene informing him that a snake had bitten her.\n <\/p>\n

\n Upon their arrival, Nworgu said, they\u2019d met her gasping for breath as doctors tried to stabilize her. \u201cShe was not talking. She was only giving hand gestures,\u201d Nworgu said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ezugwu said that, although Nwangene received one necessary antivenom at Federal Medical Center, Jabi, another needed for her treatment was unavailable at the facility.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cUnfortunately, the one they injected her (with) was the last dose left in the pharmacy of the hospital, so they requested us to buy more,\u201d he told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Federal Medical Center, Jabi has disputed that it ran out of antivenom and stood by the care its staff provided.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ezugwu said he went in search of the antivenom, only to learn of Nwangene\u2019s death moments later.\n <\/p>\n

\n The hospital said in a statement Sunday that staff had \u201cacted promptly and with the utmost care\u201d upon Nwagene\u2019s arrival, but it said she was suffering from severe neurotoxic complications.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOur medical staff provided immediate and appropriate treatment, including resuscitation efforts, intravenous fluids, intranasal oxygen, and the administration of polyvalent snake antivenom,\u201d the statement added.\n <\/p>\n

\n However, Nwagene \u201cexperienced a sudden deterioration\u201d just before being transferred to the Intensive Care Unit, the hospital said, adding that staff tried CPR and \u201cother life-saving measures,\u201d but were unable to save her.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe stand by the quality of care and dedication our team demonstrates daily. The claims of non-availability of anti-snake venom and inadequate response are unfounded and do not reflect the reality of the situation,\u201d the hospital statement said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Amemuso Choir mourned the loss<\/a> of Nwangene, describing her as \u201ca rising star\u201d who \u201cwas on the cusp of sharing her incredible talent with the world.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Ezugwu paid tribute to her as \u201can embodiment of music,\u201d highlighting her versatility in both classical and pop genres. Nworgu, who often performed alongside her, shared that one of her biggest dreams was to sing on Broadway.\n <\/p>\n

\"Ifunanya<\/p>\n

\n Recently, Nwangene had completed French classes and left her job as an architect to focus on her music career, Nworgu said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI feel dead, I can\u2019t count how many times I\u2019ve broken down,\u201d he said, calling her death \u201cthe most traumatizing thing of my life.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Nwangene\u2019s death has sparked widespread outrage among Nigerians, many expressing their discontent with the country\u2019s health care system.\n <\/p>\n

\n Human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, wrote on X: \u201cThe tragic death of Ifunanya Nwangene from snake bite is a reminder of the poor state of healthcare in Nigeria. Emergency medical care in this country is terrible. Her death isn\u2019t due to spiritual attack, it\u2019s as a result of failure of get quick care.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In response to the public outcry, Nigeria\u2019s health ministry shared the statement from the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi expressing condolences to Nwangene\u2019s family.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last month, Nigeria\u2019s Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate acknowledged that the country\u2019s health care system faces \u201csystemic challenges in ensuring consistent quality of care and patient safety\u201d and announced the formation of a national task force to address these issues.\n <\/p>\n

\n The creation of this task force came after widespread outrage over the death of renowned author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie\u2019s 21-month-old son at a Lagos hospital. The novelist\u2019s legal representatives accused the hospital of negligence, a claim that the hospital has denied.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cSnake bite is a neglected public health issue in many tropical and subtropical countries,\u201d according to the World Health Organization (WHO)<\/a>, which estimates that more than 5 million people are bitten by snakes each year, resulting in about 100,000 deaths annually.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMost of these occur in Africa, Asia and Latin America,\u201d the WHO said. It noted in a 2018 report<\/a> that there had been concerns about the \u201clow availability of safe, effective antivenom immunoglobulin products for the Sub-Saharan African region.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abuja, Nigeria \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Ifunanya Nwangene, a budding singer who captivated audiences with her performance of Rihanna\u2019s \u201cTake a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[163,85,46,482],"class_list":["post-272694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}