Infectious diseases: Rabid dog bites dozens of people in rural Swabi

Police officials euthanise the dog but are unsure if it had infected others in the area.

PESHAWAR: A dog believed to have contracted rabies has attacked and bit around 40 people before being shot by police officials in rural Swabi.

The trouble began early on Saturday morning, just as people began to enter the market in the town of Zaida, in Swabi district. The dog began attacking people in the market as they began gathering for the day’s normal activities.

Zareen Khan, an Additional Station House Officer at the local police station, told The Express Tribune that he started getting several calls from people asking him to help them after they had been attacked by what they claim to have been a rabid dog.

A team of police officials reached the market later that day and started looking for the dog. When they found it, Head Constable Hamid Nasim shot it dead. The dog was then buried in a nearby pit to help avoid spreading the disease any further.

There seems to be some dispute over how many people were bitten by the dog before it was killed. Saeed Khan, a private medical practitioner in Zaida, told The Express Tribune that he estimated that the dog had bitten close to 40 people, including two school teachers, five women, and eight children. Police officials, however, put the number closer to 50 and added that they believe that the dog may have infected other stray dogs in the area with rabies too.

“We can only provide anti-septic medications and injections here. We referred people to the Swabi District Hospital, but many people did not go because the rabies vaccines are expensive,” said Saeed. “Many people also did not go because of their superstitious beliefs and instead preferred ‘spiritual healers’.”

One of the people bitten was a woman named Dukhmena, 40. “I was coming out of the butcher shop when a black dog leapt up and bit me in the back,” she said. “It looked like a normal dog to me but people said that it was rabid so I went to get an injection. When I got home, my niece did not let me into the house, saying that I might spread the disease to the whole family. I have to go to a nearby town to see a hakeem to get medicine so that I can be cured completely.”

Perhaps one of the worst attacks was on Faqeer Hussain, an elderly school teacher. According to Hussain’s son, the dog attacked his father on his way to school, knocking him down to the ground and breaking his right arm in the process. Hussain had a minor heart attack and was taken by his family to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad where he is in the intensive care unit.

Jehanzeb Lala, a local elected official, said that every summer, around eight to 10 dogs get infected with rabies. “We shoot them, but before we do, they have done their job and infected at least 20 to 30 people,” he said. “The Zaida Municipal Committee is supposed to take care of this problem but unfortunately we have not come across a single one of them in the town.”