An acute shortage of life saving anti-rabies vaccine (ARV) at Dr. Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) has forced poor patients to buy it from the open market, causing tremendous hardship to them.
As many as 100 people are brought to the hospital for vaccination on a daily basis after being bitten by a dog, but ARV has not been available in the hospital for last 10 days due to a poor supply. This has caused tremendous difficulties for the people who are struggling to buy life saving drugs trying to salvage their lives. Dr Qureshi said that dog bite cases were common in the metropolitan and his hospital needed the vaccine immediately. The city’s two other hospitals, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center and the Indus Hospital, have limited stock of the vaccine while the other hospitals across the city have been facing a dearth of ARVs since last week. According to the data from various hospitals of the city, over 18,000 dog bite cases have been reported in the last seven months.
Areeb Navaid
Karachi
