Avoidable deaths

Diseases that can be treated are taking lives in our country. Rabies is one such disease that is turning out to be fatal just because of the non-availability of the vaccine that treats it. The situation is Sindh has long been calling for attention, but to no avail. Even loss of young souls to dog bites — both in rural and urban areas of the province — is failing to arouse the authorities into action. The provincial authorities are a perpetual failure both in the context of controlling the dog population and ensuring the supply of the drugs needed to save dog-bite victims from a death that does not come easily: the victim first develops fever and pain in head and limbs, and then picks up a choking sensation in the throat which renders him unable to even swallow water so much so that he starts avoiding even the sight of a glass of water out of sheer fear; and this condition, called hydrophobia, ultimately causes the death.

Even in cities like Karachi, the country’s financial capital, and Larkana, the political stronghold of the party that has been ruling Sindh for years and years, hospitals are suffering from a terrible lack of anti-rabies vaccine. Take the case of 10-year-old Mir Hassan who died of rabies in Larkana this past week. Parents first took their son to a hospital in Shikarpur, but were turned back as the vaccine was not available. The boy was then rushed to Larkana, but a ‘big’ hospital there, named after Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, did not either have the remedial vaccine. This brings back to memory the case of an 11-year-old boy from Sanghar in May this year. The dog-bitten boy was shifted to Karachi straightaway in the hope that the megalopolis would be a safe bet, but shockingly to no avail. There have been more than half a dozen rabies deaths just this year in Karachi alone, according to media reports. One wonders how many more deaths are needed for the authorities to spring into action. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2019.

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