A steep rise in attacks by poisonous stakes has alarmed Australians, who are increasingly confronting reptiles in their homes as the snakes seek out water from gardens and pot plants. The changed behaviour of snakes because of severe drought follows reports late last year that thirst-crazed camels were invading remote Aboriginal desert settlements and wrenching toilet cisterns and air conditioning units off walls in a search for water.

At least three people have been bitten by snakes in the past week. One, a 16-year-old schoolboy from Sydney's western suburbs, stumbled on to a golf course and suffered a heart attack after being bitten by a Brown snake, which injects a lethal venom. The boy died later. A man who stood on a Western Brown snake - one the country's most dangerous - as he crossed his back lawn in Darwin also died last month.

Yesterday the government of the State of Victoria, in Australia's populous southeast, gave warning of the movement of snakes, driven by extreme thirst, into residential and business areas. Bronwyn Pike, the Health Minister, said: "If you see a snake, don't go near it." More snakes were moving into built-up areas, she said.

George Braitberg, co-director of the toxicology service at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, said that the numbers of people seeking treatment for snake bites was increasing. "We're seeing more at the Austin. The snakes are more active because of the weather conditions and the climate conditions," he said. "But across Australia, we're seeing far more snakebites than we have had for many years."

Professor Braitberg appealed for victims to remain calm and still. "Certainly don't run around because that pumps the venom through the leg and muscles much faster," he said.

Dr Geoff Isbister, a clinical toxicologist from the Charles Darwin University in Darwin, said that the number of attacks throughout Australia was noticeably increasing. There had been 60 serious cases of snake bite since September, he said.

Dr Ken Winkel, director of the Australian Venom Research Institute, said: "The message still remains that people can die in this country from snake bite, even in the 21st century. It comes down to essentially not knowing appropriate first aid for snake bite."

Alarm over the increasing numbers of bites has prompted the Wildlife Information and Rescue Service, to appeal to people to stop attacking snakes needlessly. The organisation reported on Wednesday that it was receiving a flurry of calls about unnecessary snake killings amid growing fears of an invasion by snakes into urban areas.

Mandy Page, the rescue service’s Sydney call manager, said that her staff were hearing an increasing number of alarming stories about people trying to deal with snakes on their own, particularly after the schoolboy's death. "We had a horrible one last night where people just bashed a python to death for no reason, and they're completely harmless," Miss Page said. "People have obviously got this huge snake vendetta and fear snakes now even more than they did before."

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