PESHAWAR, June 22: Non-availability of anti-rabies vaccines in public-sector hospitals of the province has led to the death of at least 11 people in the last one year, according to official sources.
They said that with the onset of the summer season, cases involving dog bite have registered a sharp rise. An official of the provincial health department said that seven people, including three children of Buner, died mainly because of lack of facilities at the state-run hospitals.
Officials said that about 27,000 people, mostly farmers and children, had fallen victim to stray dogs throughout the province last year. They were of the opinion that the number of deaths caused by stray dogs could be greater but due to non-existence of a health management information system (HMIS), the actual number of deaths cannot be ascertained.
They said that many patients did not receive any treatment because of their inability to purchase an anti-rabies vaccine, which were marketed by multinational pharmaceutical companies and cost at least Rs4,000 per vial.
The provincial government had recently asked the executive district officers (health) about the number of dog-bite cases in their respective areas and also about the availability of anti-rabies vaccines there.
Officials said high prices of anti-rabies vaccines in the open market had served to increase the risk of mortality from dog-bite cases in the rural parts of the NWFP.
According to reports from some parts of the province, on an average about two dozen people, mostly children, were bitten by stray dogs daily. The victims found it extremely difficult to seek treatment because government-run hospitals did not receive any vaccines owing to the paucity of funds.
The number of stray dogs is on the rise due to the negligence of the municipal authorities. Officials said the problem of stray dogs was exacerbated by the fact that strychnine, the poison the civic bodies used in order to eliminate stray dogs, was very expensive and the process of killing them was also quite risky.
Also, dumping their carcasses was not any easy task for the municipal authorities or the public, they said.
Officials said anti-rabies vaccines manufactured by the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, was administered to rabies patients free of cost and was stated to have hazardous side-effects.
The vaccine, experts say, destroys the central nervous system and has long been banned throughout the world, according to World Health Organisation guidelines. Furthermore, the mode of administration is also faulty. About 14 injections are administered around the umbilicus to patients which is quite painful.
The sole vaccination centre in the province is the office of the executive district officer, health, Peshawar, which has been receiving between 30 and 35 dog-bite patients daily, but due to lack of funds it had stopped receiving patients.
Giving details, officials said that during the past one year about 18,355 patients have been bitten by dogs in Peshawar, 491 in Bannu, 536 in Mansehra, 471 in Chitral, 832 in Mardan, 285 in Swat, 110 in Kohat, 487 in Abbottabad, 588 in Malakand, 356 in Buner, 211 in Hangu, 186 in Mansehra, 299 in Swabi, 97 in Karak, 483 in Kohat, 245 in Lakki Marwat, 144 in Lower Dir, 676 in Timergarah, 449 in Charsadda, 356 in Haripur and 540 in Dera Ismail Khan.
