Snake bites rattle city

Snake bite incidents are on the rise in the greater Beijing area as the weather becomes warm, earlier than previous years, the Beijing Evening News reported yesterday.

From April 30 to May 8, four patients were treated for snake bites at the snake bite center of Hospital 301, Haidian district. The center rarely received patients before the end of June, said its director Zhao Xiaodong. Zhao attributes the early occurrences to an abrupt rise in temperature, which wakes up the reptiles from their hibernation.