Three minors badly injured in stray dog attack

Six-year-old Naimatullah Zahoor was playing outside his house in Musharraf Colony, Mauripur with his friends when a stray dog started barking at them. As the boys cried and ran for safety, the dog leapt at Naimatullah and two of his friends, severely injuring the boys before passersby could throw stones at it to rescue the kids.

“My son and his friends are critically injured in a stray dog attack. I don’t know who will get rid of these dogs which are now attacking people, especially women and children in the entire city,” Zahoor Khan, Naimatullah’s father told The News at the emergency department of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC).

The injured children’s families initially rushed them to the Civil Hospital Karachi but to their surprise, the dog bite treatment centre there was closed. They were told to go to JPMC because the CHK’s centre only functions from 8am to 2pm.

Doctors and paramedics at JPMC were shocked to see the severity of injuries to Naimatullah whose face had been badly mutilated by the dog. He was provided immediate first aid as well as immunoglobulin and shots of the Anti-Rabies Vaccine (ARV).

“The injured boy and his family were in extreme shock but we attended to them properly and provided immediate first aid and vaccination to the injured kid,” said JPMC Executive Director Dr Seemin Jamali. “Dog bite cases are on the rise and people would now have to be extra vigilant and careful about themselves and their kids.”

According to the JPMC’s dog bite treatment centre’s data, so far 7,500 cases have been brought to the hospital alone, while thousands were taken to CHK and Indus Hospital Korangi after incidents of dog bite.

“Every month, 100 to 110 people bitten by stray dogs are being brought to JPMC for treatment and vaccination. This number is growing with each month as the number of stray dogs is on the rise in Karachi,” said Dr Jamali.

Pakistan is also facing an extreme shortage of the Anti-Rabies Vaccine and Immunoglobulin due to a worldwide crisis of unavailability of dog bite vaccine and reduction in vaccine supply from India, which is exporting the product to other countries after meeting its own demand first.

Commenting earlier on the issue of the shortage of Anti-Rabies Vaccine, Dr Jamali had said some suppliers were offering Chinese vaccine to the JPMC but she refused such offers as that vaccine had recently been recalled globally and she was not willing to risk the lives of patients with the unproven vaccine.

Dr Jamali had also suggested to Pakistani pharmaceutical industry and research institutions that they should come up with locally-produced vaccines to end the dependence on imported vaccines and medicines, especially those from India.