{"id":528584,"date":"2026-04-13T14:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/528584\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T14:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T14:03:10","slug":"spider-bite-hospital-admissions-on-the-rise-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/528584\/","title":{"rendered":"Spider bite hospital admissions on the rise in England"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Spider bites leave small puncture marks on the skin. This can be painful and may cause redness and swelling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Advice is to put an ice pack wrapped in cloth on the bite for at least 20 minutes if it&#8217;s swollen, keep it raised if possible, and take painkillers such as paracetamol or ibuprofen if it&#8217;s painful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Professor David Lalloo, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine says the bites from false widow spiders &#8220;are not dangerous&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But they can make people feel unwell for a day, he added.   <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When it bites, the noble false widow injects a toxin which can cause pain in the bite area, minor swelling and in extreme cases make you feel sick, according to Buglife.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The spider&#8217;s bite doesn&#8217;t result in gangrene-like infections &#8211; the insect conservation charity says this results from a bacterial infection which could come from any source including touching a mosquito bite, scratch or splinter wound with dirty fingers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There are no proven cases where the noble false-widow has caused death, coma or permanent injury, Buglife says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In fact, the female noble false widow spiders are notably sluggish and non-aggressive, it adds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They will never run or jump at you in an aggressive manner as some people describe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Most British spiders couldn&#8217;t bite you if they tried; their fangs are too small or weak to penetrate human skin,&#8221; the charity says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Most large spiders are not inclined to bite a human \u2013 you can handle hundreds of large house or garden spiders and never get bitten.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sometimes venomous spiders can be brought into the UK on produce or goods from abroad. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Buglife says spiders found in grocery areas of shops should be treated with caution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spider bites leave small puncture marks on the skin. This can be painful and may cause redness and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-528584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}