KARACHI: A 10-year-old Mir Hassan, who was bitten by a stray dog, died of rabies in Larkana on Tuesday.
Rabies encephalitis, a lethal viral but vaccine-preventable disease, claimed another life in Larkana district of Sindh when a boy died after falling prey to dog biting as he was not treated due to unavailability of anti-rabies vaccine at government hospitals.
According to the parents, their son was first taken to a hospital in Shikarpur where the minor was not given the treatment because there was no vaccine available at the hospital. Later, they rushed him to Larkana's Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Hospital but he could not receive care there either, as this government health center had also run out of the vaccine. Resultantly, the patient succumbed to the disease.
A Rabies Encephalitis is a dog-borne viral illness caused mostly by the biting of stray dogs, and if ARV is not administered to the affected person along with immunoglobulin, the patient suffers a miserable death due to hydrophobia and other complications of the disease.