Dog bite cases on rise in city

Nallakunta: Hundreds of people are rushing to the Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases (Fever Hospital) in Nallakunta for dog bite treatment. Nearly 80 dog bite cases are treated by the hospital staff on an average. People of different age groups are falling prey to rabies because of stray dogs. The vaccine has to be given within 24 hours. Almost the similar number of cases are reported at the Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM) at Narayanguda.

"Immunoglobulin which should be given along with vaccine is not present in any of the hospitals except here. Vaccination is present even in primary health centers also, but immunoglobulin is not," says a staff nurse from Fever Hospital. She further added "People from rural areas visit here as a result. If there is supply in maximum areas and increased awareness, we can reduce the number of death cases caused by rabies."

"These stray dogs are creating tense in people especially during night times, they run behind the vehicles and try to catch the legs. People travel by car will be safe but for two wheelers, it sometimes leads to accidents," says Avinash, a commuter.

"It will be good if volunteers adopt stray dogs as they are the main cause of dog bite cases. If it happened in the city, we can reduce the number. Respective officials should also conduct special drives to catch them as they did at the time of Ivanka Trump visit to India," says Lokesh, a commuter. In the last three years, there are 34,000 cases registered per year at IPM and about 10,000 plus cases at Fever Hospital.