Man dies from snakebite hours after attending brother's funeral who also died from snakebite

An Indian man, who had gone to attend the last rites of his brother following the latter's death due to a snakebite, also died after being bitten by a snake in his sleep at his house.

The 22-year-old man, identified as Govind Mishra, had travelled back to his village in the state of Bihar in India to attend his elder brother's funeral on Thursday. Mishra was sleeping at his house when another snake bit him. The snake also bit another relative who is still in critical condition at a local hospital.

Both men had come to their village from Ludhiana in Punjab. "Govind Mishra was killed after being bitten by a snake in his sleep. One of the relatives of the family, Chandrashekar Pandey, who was in the same house, was also bitten by a snake," Circle Officer Radha Raman Singh told PTI, an Indian news agency."

The police have not issued any clarification if they are treating the deaths as suspicious or not, per a report in The Independent.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly half of snakebite fatalities are reported from India. Even then, it remains a neglected public health issue in the country.

According to WHO statistics, "Between 81,000 and 138,000 deaths occur each year" due to snakebites globally. The agency says that antivenom provision can reduce the number of snakebite deaths in India. The report added that almost 2 million people are poisoned by snakebites every year in Asia.

Snakebites not only lead to deaths but, in some cases, have also led to amputations and other permanent disabilities, according to a report in Newsweek. The majority of the snakebites in India are caused by just four types of snakes: common krait, Indian cobra, Russell's viper, and saw-scaled viper.

Most of these incidents also go unreported because people do not usually seek medical treatment and resort to "non-medical sources," to treat the victims.