Dog bite kills 18-year-old in Karachi

KARACHI: An 18-year-old boy succumbed to injuries of a dog bite on Sunday, revealed Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC).

The deceased identified as Zakir Khan had been a resident of Karachi’s Nooriabad, as revealed further by the medical facility.

Head of the JPMC, Seemi Jamali said that the victim, who had been admitted to the hospital after getting bitten by a dog, was not vaccinated with an anti-rabies vaccine.

“The total number of people who have died from dog bites in Sindh this year have risen to 21,” she said further.

Earlier in September a similar case had come afloat in Shikarpur where a ten-year-old named Mir Hassan had lost his life owing to rabies following a dog bite. While the minor was rushed for treatment after the incident, unavailability of the vaccine had deprived him of treatment at the hospital.

As per the parents, the boy was subsequently shifted to Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Larkana but the required vaccine was not available at that facility either which eventually led to Hassan yielding 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.