BATTAGRAM: Non-availability of anti-rabies vaccine in the local health facilities has been creating complications for the dog bite victims in Kohistan district as the people cannot buy the costly injection from the market.

A mother and her son had to be taken to District Headquarters Hospital, Kohistan, for getting dog-bite treatment the other day after a four-hour walk from a remote area, where the vaccine was not available..

District health officer Dr Rafiullah, however, told Dawn that anti-rabies serum was available in all the rural health centres where it was provided free of cost to people. The people, he said should contact the nearby hospitals to get treatment.

A doctor at the Pattan rural health centre, where many cases have arrived, said they didn’t have the anti-rabies injection due to which the patients were referred to district headquarters hospital.

Doctors, who have been receiving dog bite cases at the local health facilities, said most of the victims were destined to develop complications because a single dose of drug in the market cost a minimum of Rs5,000 which was out of reach of poor people.

The doctors said the victims happened to be unwary passers-by, including women and children, who required immediate medical assistance.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2016