July 10, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 24, 1428

MUZAFFARGARH, July 9: Three people of a family, locked up in as many rooms by their relatives for the last four days, are waiting for treatment or death at Basti Fazil Karlo, 15 kilometres from here.

The plight of Noor Muhammad karlo, his wife and his son Fiaz Hussain began when on the morning of July 3 they all woke up to find dog-bite injuries on the body of their cow –- the only source of livelihood for the impoverished household.

The father and the son approached a local vet seeking some medicine to cure the cow whose milk was the only commodity they could sell to keep the wolf away from their door.

The vet gave them some ointment to apply to the bite injuries and some other medicines to be orally administered to the cattle. They did as they were told, but the cow was not to be cured. In a day or so it turned pale and weak, finally going mad. The village fellows, on knowing about the incident, immediately shot the cow dead.

Now they turned to the owners. Knowing that Noor and his family members had been trying to cure the cattle and have had physical contact with it several times they asked the family to see some doctor.

The family visited a local doctor who asked them to get vaccinated for acute rabies immediately. He also asked the relatives not to allow the three to come out or touch any one otherwise they too would catch rabies. On July 6, the family was confined to separate rooms in their house.

On July 8, one of their relative, Ghulam Abbas Karlo, approached DHQ hospital for the vaccine, but he was told to contact the medical superintendent as only he was authorised to issue the life-saving drug.

Later, he was told by the hospital staff that the vaccine was out of stock and he should buy it from the market in Multan. As a single dose of vaccine cost Rs3,500 to Rs4,000, purchasing it from the market was out of question.

However, after using some contacts in the right places, the relatives came to know that the DHQ hospital pharmacy had the vaccine but that could only be provided to the patients free of cost on production of zakat forms, duly attested by Zakat council head.

The relatives pleaded to doctors that since already much time had been wasted, any further delay could be dangerous for the patients. At this, the DMS got ready to check the patients on Tuesday (today).

DHO Malik Ashiq Hussain said the district was faced with shortage of rabies vaccine. He said the vaccine was provided to the DHQ hospital by the federal health ministry in limited stocks.

At present, the government was supplying the vaccine only to Sindh and Balochistan because of flood situation there and there was no stock available with the hospital.