Scorpion Plague 2021: What really happened in Egypt?

Remember the 1997 film The Mummy and how it portrayed scorpions as ‘Deathstalkers?’ Well, sometimes isn’t far from reality. Recently, the desert country of the Middle East, Egypt, fell prey to deadly attacks from scorpions. The land of pyramids has been affected by several plagues in the past, but none in the modern times, until this one.  

Scorpion plague 2021 
During the second week of November this year, poisonous scorpions got washed out of their sandy burrows following a heavy hailstorm and flash flooding for over a week. They were forced out in the open in the residential city of Aswan (one of the driest cities in the world, situated on the banks of River Nile) in southern Egypt. More than 500 people got stung by the venomous creatures leading to hospitalization and deaths. The symptoms included swelling and pain, severe sweating, moderate to high fever, nausea, diarrhea, muscle tremors and head twitching. According to the health ministry of Egypt, the victims have been treated with anti-venoms and the hospital sector is arranging for more in case of possible future attacks that are now being called as ‘scorpionado.’  

The history of scorpions in the land of pyramids 
Scorpions have a long existing past in Egypt. Firstly, the country is home to 24 species of world’s most deadly scorpions. In fact, the Aswan province itself is home to one of the most venomous scorpion species called Androctonus crassicauda (an Arabian fat-tailed scorpion) found only across parts of North Africa and Middle East. As a result, Egypt experiences many scorpion-related deaths every year. However, this year’s plague has been unprecedented. 

In fact, in absence of proper medical assistance, some of these scorpions even have the power to kill an adult human in less than an hour. Moreover, scorpions find a crucial spot in Egyptian mythology too. It says that Isis, the Egyptian goddess of Healing and Magic gets her life saved by seven scorpions.  

This recent scorpion attack has been compared to plagues that Egypt has witnessed in the past, and has even been said to be of a biblical proportion.  

Also, ever since the vast scale scorpion attacks across the southern part of Egypt after the country experienced massive rainfall (heaviest in 7 years) and floods, Egyptians have been drawing parallels to the stories of other plagues that befell in ancient Egypt. 

However, climate experts have attributed this scorpion plague as one of the consequences of climate change, that has already impacted Egypt’s harvest.