Stray dog clubbed to death in Korangi

Enraged parents and other local residents on Saturday clubbed a stray dog to death after the animal reportedly attacked 12 people, including five children, near Kabaddi Ground in Korangi No 3.The infuriated people also fired at several other stray dogs in the area with semi-automatic weapons.All the dog’s victims were rushed to Indus Hospital in Korangi where they were vaccinated and given first aid, health officials said, adding that all the injured, including children, were out of danger and in a stable condition.Incidents of dog-bite cases are on the rise in Karachi due to rising population of stray dogs in the city, which attack human being either for being rabid or for invasion of their space. According to health officials, hundreds of people, mostly children and women, are daily brought to the city’s three or four major hospitals for treatment of dog-bite injuries and vaccination.In the latest incident in Korangi, the children were playing near their houses and the other victims were walking past them when they were attacked by the stray dog. Eyewitnesses said at first the dog attacked some children and when adults tried to protect them, it attacked them too and injured many of them.Following the incident, enraged parents wielding clubs and batons tortured the dog to death while some young men carrying arms also fired at other stray dogs in the vicinity, reportedly injuring several of them.Incidents of people killing stray dogs are being frequently reported in the city, as the municipal authorities have stopped killing the animals under pressure from NGOs, which call for vaccinating the canines against rabies and neutering the animals instead of culling them.“Indus Hospital today received 12 people including five children who were bitten by a stray dog with light to moderate wounds on all parts of their bodies. All the patients were given immediate first aid and anti-rabies vaccine [ARV] as well as immunoglobulin, which gives immediate prevention from the rabies”, said Aftab Gohar, an official of the Rabies Free Pakistan project of Indus Hospital.20,000 cases in 2018Citing data of government hospitals, health officials said at least 20,000 people, mostly children and women, were attacked and bitten by stray dogs in Karachi during 2018. The officials added that the actual number of such cases could be much higher than 20,000 as many people wounded by dogs would have received treatment at private hospitals as well.“Around 7,600 patients were brought to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre [JPMC] after dog-bite incidents in 2018, who were given immunoglobulin and ARV despite their extreme shortage in the country”, JPMC Executive Director Dr Seemin Jamali said.She added that JPMC was the largest hospital for the treatment and vaccination of people with dog-bite injuries as on average 200 such patients were brought to the hospital on a daily basis.Indus Hospital and Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital received over 6,000 cases of dog bites each in 2018, health officials said, adding that around 1,500 to 2,000 such patients were treated at the National Institute of Child Health and some private hospitals during the year.Shortage of vaccinePakistan has been facing an extreme shortage of the ARV as leading Indian vaccine manufacturers have stopped supplying the vaccine to Pakistan, citing the increase in demand of vaccine in India.Pakistani importers, however, claim that Indian firms stopped exporting the vaccine to Pakistan as they had found its markets in developed countries where they could get better prices compared to Pakistan.The ARV is not produced in Pakistan. After European multinational companies stopped importing it to Pakistan, local importers started importing the vaccine from India. Since the Indian companies stopped supplying it, the vaccine has been short in the country.“Either Pakistan would have to get rid of stray dogs completely or it would have to start producing its own anti-rabies vaccine as importing the vaccine by spending millions of dollars is not advisable,” said Ahmed, one of the importers of vaccines.He added that the ARV was short in the country not only because Indian companies had stopped exporting it but also due to the fact that local importers had stopped importing vaccines in general as the cost of imports had increased after the devaluation of the Pakistani currency by 40 per cent.

from The News International - Karachi http://bit.ly/2RdByie