<\/p>\n
KARACHI: An increasing number of dog-bite cases are being reported at city\u2019s public sector hospitals, which are currently facing an acute shortage of rabies immunoglobulin (RIG), a life-saving serum essential for all serious animal exposures, it emerged on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Speaking to Dawn<\/em>, doctors at the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) shared that while the facility routinely received a considerable number of dog-bite patients on a daily basis, their number had increased dramatically over the past 10 days.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have treated more than 500 cases of dog bite over the past three days. This number doesn\u2019t include those patients who have reported for a follow-up visit during these days,\u201d said CHK medical superintendent Dr S.M. Khalid Bukhari.<\/p>\n Around 900 cases of dog bite were reported every month at the hospital, seeing around 1,900 follow-up visits by patients, he added.<\/p>\n CHK doctors treat over 500 dog-bite victims in three days; most cases are from Lyari, Baldia Town, Golimar, Orangi and Gadap<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The hospital had a separate rabies prevention clinic operating for over 15 years, he added.<\/p>\n According to the doctors, while the patients are coming from all over Karachi, a large number of them are reporting from Golimar, Lyari, Baldia, Orangi Town and Gadap Town.<\/p>\n \u201cAlso, there have been cases in which a single dog had hurt several individuals, including children,\u201d CHK\u2019s additional medical superintendent Dr Liaquat Ali Halo said, adding that quite a few cases were referrals from a major tertiary care hospital of the city.<\/p>\n \u201cThe patients were referred to us for administration of RIG after being given the vaccine for rabies,\u201d he said, adding that the RIG injection was needed for all serious animal exposures as it prevented infection from rabies, a hundred per cent fatal disease.<\/p>\n Sources said that treatment for dog bite in the public sector was available at only CHK and the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC). The two hospitals were currently facing an acute shortage of RIG, a costly medication.<\/p>\n They said that supplies of RIG from the health department had almost stopped, forcing hospitals to arrange the serum from their own budget.<\/p>\n City\u2019s situation worsening<\/strong><\/p>\n When contacted, JPMC\u2019s deputy director Dr Nousheen Rauf admitted that the hospital had been facing problems in arranging RIG for the past few days.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t refused the treatment to anyone but we have been facing issues in arranging RIG,\u201d she said, explaining that the hospital received limited supplies of RIG and often it was arranged from the hospital\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n A total of 150-200 patients of dog-bite daily reported at JPMC, which included 40 new cases, she said.<\/p>\n Sources at CHK said that RIG was only administered during the morning hours at the hospital\u2019s rabies\u2019 prevention clinic.<\/p>\n \u201cPatients with serious wounds are given the vaccine and asked to come in the morning for RIG. The medication is kept in cold storage at the clinic which closes in the afternoon,\u201d said a doctor.<\/p>\n Over 13,000 cases reported this year<\/strong><\/p>\n Meanwhile, experts described the city\u2019s situation vis-\u00e0-vis dog bites as worrisome in the absence of any meaningful, humane government initiative to address the problem.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are seeing an increase in dog-bite cases every month. Last year, we recorded over 10,000 cases and this year, so far more than 13,000 cases have been reported,\u201d said Aftab Gohar, the manager of The Indus Hospital\u2019s Rabies Prevention and Training Centre.<\/p>\n He added that the facility provided free of cost treatment to patients.<\/p>\n He linked the ongoing spike in dog-bite cases to the animal\u2019s breeding season. \u201cOur clinical experience shows that there is a sharp increase in dog-bite cases twice a year; from March to April and October to November during which the canine population breeds.\u201d<\/p>\n Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pedestrians seem apprehensive as they approach stray dogs in a street.\u2014White Star KARACHI: An increasing number of dog-bite cases are being reported at city\u2019s public sector hospitals, which are currently facing an acute shortage of rabies immunoglobulin (RIG), a life-saving serum essential for all serious animal exposures, it emerged on Wednesday. Speaking to Dawn, doctors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/12\/141029431587416.png?r=103243","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n