12-year-old boy from Balochistan dies of rabies in Karachi hospital
KARACHI: A 12-year-old boy from Balochistan, who had been battling rabies for the past four days at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), died at the facility on Wednesday evening. Sources said that the patient with a history of dog bite developed rabies despite getting the vaccine in Jhal Magsi district. He was later taken to a Larkana hospital from where he was referred to the JPMC.…
A 12-year-old boy from the Balochistan region passed away at a Karachi hospital after battling rabies for four days. He had a history of a dog bite before developing symptoms such as fever, hydrophobia, and irritability, which are classic signs of encephalitic rabies. The boy received the rabies vaccine in Jhal Magsi district but was later transferred from a hospital in Larkana to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) in Karachi.
Upon arrival at JPMC, doctors noted injuries around his eyes, indicating a dog bite. The crucial factor in his death was the failure to administer rabies immunoglobulin (RIG) and adequate doses of the rabies vaccine in time, despite receiving a single dose of RIG and three doses of the vaccine at another hospital in Golarchi. This incident raises concerns about the quality of the vaccine and the training of medical staff handling post-exposure treatment.
Unreported cases of rabies are common, as patients often resort to home remedies or faith healers instead of seeking medical help. Rabies, almost always fatal once symptoms appear, can be prevented with early wound cleaning, timely vaccination, and the administration of rabies immunoglobulin, if necessary. Dogs are the primary transmitters of the virus, but bites from wild animals can also cause infection. Early treatment can effectively prevent rabies, which is almost invariably fatal.
Written by urgent.news from Dawn - Pakistan's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
