Karachi: The number of deaths from rabies in Sindh has risen to 21 this year after a 24-year-old man died at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) on Thursday, while an 11-year-old boy has also been admitted with suspected rabies encephalitis, health officials said.
Of the 21 reported rabies deaths in Sindh, 13 have been recorded at the Indus Hospital in Karachi, seven at JPMC and one at the Indus Hospital in Badin, according to figures shared by health officials.
The latest victim, identified as Shehryar, a resident of Qayyumabad, had been bitten by a dog around two months ago but did not receive post-exposure rabies vaccination following the bite, doctors said.
Dr Irfan Siddiqui, in-charge of the Emergency Department at JPMC, said Shehryar was brought to the hospital’s emergency department at around 3:40am on Thursday in a critical condition.
He had been suffering from irritability, restlessness and agitation for about a week and had also developed hydrophobia, a characteristic manifestation of rabies in which patients develop fear or difficulty associated with drinking water.
Dr Siddiqui said the patient’s clinical presentation was consistent with rabies encephalitis. His condition deteriorated rapidly and he died at around 9am on Thursday, a little over five hours after being brought to the hospital.
Meanwhile, doctors at JPMC are treating an 11-year-old boy as a suspected case of rabies encephalitis, four months after he was reportedly bitten by a dog.
The case is significant as the child’s family claims that he had completed the post-exposure prophylaxis course following the dog bite, hospital officials said.
The boy was brought to the emergency department on Wednesday night with fever and irritability for the previous two to three days and difficulty eating and drinking for around a day.
After initial management in the emergency department, the hospital’s neurology team was called in for assessment. Rabies encephalitis was considered among the possible diagnoses and the child was subsequently admitted to the FGO ward under the supervision of the neurology team for further evaluation and management.
Doctors said further assessment would be required to establish the diagnosis and examine the circumstances surrounding the reported dog bite and post-exposure vaccination.
Dr Siddiqui urged people bitten or scratched by dogs or other potentially rabid animals to immediately seek medical attention and receive appropriate post-exposure prophylaxis.
Rabies is preventable when appropriate post-exposure treatment is administered promptly following exposure, but once clinical symptoms develop, the disease is almost invariably fatal.