Latest news with #AllergyandAnaphylaxisAustralia
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Yahoo
Aussie mum's brutal injuries as property owners warned of painful threat hidden underground
An Aussie mum has shared painful details about the moment she was suddenly attacked by a swarm of aggressive wasps, leaving her with roughly 20 excruciating welts all over her body. The 33-year-old farmer, who lives on a 20-acre property in Victoria's Yarra Valley, told Yahoo News the entire ordeal began last Thursday when she headed out to drag a harrow — a tool used to break up the soil and animal droppings across a paddock. '[I] was harrowing the horse poo before Saturday's predicted rain. It's a nice empty, flat paddock with zero long grass as it had just been grazed,' the anonymous woman said. 'I was pottering along about 8km/h and hadn't noticed any wasps hanging around when all of a sudden I was swarmed. The pain was immediate and intense.' Unknowingly, the mum of three had accidentally driven just a bit 'too close' to a European wasp nest hidden in the ground. The non-native species — otherwise known as vespula germanica — is considered to be a significant pest in Australia. Unlike honeybees, the European wasp, which has also been recorded in South Australia, NSW and Western Australia, can sting multiple times. As the insects surrounded her, the farmer told Yahoo her adrenaline kicked in and she leapt off her bike and 'ran like f**k'. 'They'd gotten down my shirt so I ripped my shirt off as I was running, and my hat and hair tie have come off in the process,' she said. 'I just kept running until the only ones left were the ones tangled in my hair, which were repeatedly stinging my head.' The 33-year-old was stung about 20 times overall — mostly on her back. Four stings on her arm 'blew up', and she suffered others to her head, face and stomach. 'I've never had an encounter with a wasp before, and kinda figured that if I left them alone, they'd leave me alone. I've since been told they're naturally very aggressive and people are often attacked just from walking by them,' the woman added. 'It's definitely made me more wary of them. I often have my three young kids out in the paddocks with me too.' 🐜 Aussie mum sounds alarm over deadly garden threat hiding in yards 🏡 Aussies stunned by 'nightmare inducing' growth in backyard shed 🐝 Dangerous 'trend' for getting rid of wasps sparks warning: 'Needless killing' About an hour later, the farmer started to have a 'strange heavy feeling' in her chest despite her heart rate being normal. 'I barely slept that night from the pain. I also had 48 hours of diarrhoea which is the body's way of flushing out the toxins from the venom. My arm is still a bit swollen a week later.' The woman said she decided not to seek medical attention as she wasn't experiencing any respiratory systems. 'I managed at home with ice, calamine lotion and homeopathics. I didn't see the point in clogging up the emergency department. I have since heard that once you are stung, you're more likely to have a worse or even anaphylactic reaction next time.' According to Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia, people who have had a local reaction like a rash or swelling after being stung have less than a 10 per cent chance of having a severe allergic reaction to future insect stings or bites. Given that she lives 'down a dirt road that no one can ever find', the mum did visit her GP on Monday to pick up a couple of EpiPens just in case. 'He agreed the chest symptom wasn't a good sign, and diarrhoea is a 'severe' symptom.' When she was feeling up for it, the 33-year-old searched for the nest that had made her so ill, and found another two in other paddocks. 'We've been here six years and this is the driest year we've had. The ground has opened up and there's cracks everywhere. It's the worst we've ever seen the European wasps too,' she said. About 80 per cent of European wasp nests will occur in the ground, according to Victoria's Department of Health. 'All three have been powdered but there are still so many wasps around and a pest controller told us on a property this size, we're likely to have a dozen or more,' the farmer said. 'I've put traps out all over the place and I'm catching heaps, but it just seems like a drop in the ocean. There are so many." According to Victoria's Department of Health, the best method of wasp control is to locate the nest and eradicate them using the appropriate insecticide, especially early in the morning or at night when they're less active. If you don't feel up for it, call a professional in your area for help. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
The Guardian
24-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Fire ant sting hospitalisations surge post-Cyclone Alfred as reports of first pet death also emerge
Twenty-three people have been hospitalised with serious fire ant stings amid a surge in reports of the invasive pest in the aftermath of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred and a new $24m package targeting suppression of the insect. The National Fire Ant Eradication Program has received notifications of 60 serious red imported fire ant (Rifa) stings in south-east Queensland since 1 March, with 23 serious enough to warrant hospital care. Separately, a puppy stung to death 15 months ago was reportedly the first pet killed in Queensland by the ants. A program spokesperson said: 'Fire ants deliver painful, fiery stings that can cause severe, and sometimes fatal, reactions in humans, pets, and animals,' citing National Allergy Centre of Excellence and Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia figures that show up to 7.5% of people stung require medical attention. The reported rates of fire ants stings were well above average, said Reece Pianta, the advocacy manager at the Invasive Species Council. Most people stung were doing cyclone clean-up work at the time, he said. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'It just shows you what a serious risk fire ants pose to anyone who's got a job that requires them to go outdoors, or who enjoys bush walking or barbecues on the beach,' he said. 'It tells us what the future will be like across the country if fire ant densities grow and spread everywhere.' The impacts of growing Rifa densities on pets was also becoming clearer, Pianta said. 'We are getting a lot of reports of animals having anaphylactic reactions in parks [and] of insect sting events causing animal fatalities,' he said. Fifteen months ago, Ebony Britton's puppy was found dead on a fire ant nest in Greenbank, near Logan. Pianta said it was the first pet death he could definitively say was caused by fire ants. Pianta said back-to-back flooding events, under-resourcing and inadequate support for property owners was to blame on an 'explosion' in fire ant numbers. The council has warned that flood events spread the super-pest. 'I can easily think of half a dozen locations south of Brisbane where I can go and see 100 nests right now. That is something that's changed in the last 18 months.' He said earlier modelling showed that were fire ants to become endemic, 150,000 Australians each year would need medical attention because of fire ants stings. On Monday, the Queensland government announced a $24m boost to Queensland's Fire Ant Suppression taskforce, which will target 212,000 hectares (523,862 acres) within the region's suppression zone over the next two years. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The Crisafulli government said the treatment would reduce Rifa density in the fire ant suppression zone by up to 80%, focusing on areas along the Logan and Albert rivers and parts of the Scenic Rim, where Rifa densities were highest. The Queensland minister for primary industries, Tony Perrett, said: 'We're hitting fire ants hard in the suppression zone, doubling down on suppression efforts to deal with this destructive pest before it impacts more Queenslanders. 'By working with other states and the commonwealth … I am very confident we will be able to prevent a fully fledged invasion.' Pianta said the federal government now needed to match the funds. 'That's why this funding announcement is so timely, and why it is essential that we see a federal commitment about this at the coming election. This is an issue the community is very concerned about in Queensland at the moment,' he said. Rifa are native to South America and are believed to have arrived in Australia via infected materials on ships at the port of Brisbane in 2001 but may have been present in the country since 1992. They are dark reddish-brown with darker abdomens and pose a widespread risk to native wildlife, industry and Australia's way of life. The pest has now spread to more than 700,000 hectares (1.73m acres) in the Brisbane region and outlier detections have in the past year been found in Oakey, the Sunshine Coast and northern NSW.
