KARACHI, Jan 9: A 52-year-old dog bite victim from Frontier Colony, SITE Town, who was brought to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for treatment on Tuesday, died within five hours.
According to in-charge of the JPMC Accidents and Emergency Department, Dr Seemi Jamali, the victim, Banaras Ali was rushed to the casualty of the hospital with a history of severe hydrophobia and fits. After initial inquiry the patient was shifted to Medical Ward-6 for treatment in isolation, but he succumbed to the full-blown rabies only within four and a half hours stay at the hospital on Tuesday.
Mr Banaras was bitten on his left leg by a dog in Orangi about eight months back, but neither he told his family members about the incident immediately nor received any vaccination against the bite, Dr Seemi stated while quoting wife of the deceased who along with a son, brought her husband to the hospital.
According to the victim’s wife, the incident of dog biting was revealed to family after 6-8 days after which she started trying some home remedies, including use of kohl on the wound, which gave no result and increased the complexities. At home he used to have fits and jerky movements and lately had started getting frightened miserably during urination, the wife added.
At JPMC though the patient behaved normally and talked to doctors reasonably, but when tested for hydrophobia, Mr Banaras showed positive symptoms, said Dr Jamali. Normally it takes two days to two years for incubation of rabies in human bodies. She said dog bite victims should report to the JPMC or any other health care facility for snit-rabies vaccination at the earliest irrespective of the depth of the wound.
Experts say that 95 per cent of animal-bite cases involve stray dogs, therefore there was a dire need for launching campaign to create awareness about dog bite problems and control over the growing population of street dogs.
As precaution, children should not be left alone with a cat or dog and people should avoid making any attempt to intervene in fight between animals or come close to sick animals.
