Strays bare fangs: 300 in Lucknow bitten by canines every day

LUCKNOW: The stray dog menace is not limited to the city’s outskirts. Within the city, close to 300 cases of dog bites are reported everyday, shows data from government and private hospitals.
According to data from Balrampur Hospital on antirabies vaccination (ARV) against animal bites, there has been a 25% increase in such cases from 2016 to 2018.
Of all cases of animal bites in a year, 99% are from dogs.

In 2016 at Balrampur Hospital, 16,173 ARV were administered. In 2017, the number was 21,236.
This year, from January to mid-May, close to 9,000 ARV cases have been taken up at Balrampur Hospital.
On a given day, the hospital deals with 300 cases of dog bite daily. Of these, 150 are fresh cases and the remaining are follow-ups, said Balrampur Hospital director Dr Rajeev Lochan.
At Civil Hospital, 50 ARV cases come in everyday on an average. Another 50 are follow-up cases, said medical superintendent Dr Ashutosh Dubey.
At various private medical facilities where ARV is available, another 100 cases of dog bite are reported on an average daily.
This brings the figure to 300 fresh cases of dog bites in the city everyday.
The incidents are reported from various residential areas. Children are mostly targets of stray animals.
Resident of New Hyderabad, 10-year-old Jitendra had gone to buy sugar from a shop nearby in the morning when stray dogs attacked him. Within a week, Jitendra’s sister Madhu, 15, was attacked by stray dogs on Jopling Road, where she was playing while her parents worked at an under-construction building.
Both went to Balrampur Hospital for vaccination.
ARV constitutes four injection shots. The first is given on the day of the attack, followed by three others on the seventh, 14th and 21st days.
“A fifth shot is given on the 28th day from the attack if the dog has died,” said Nisha Tiwari, chief pharmacist at the ARV cell at Balrampur Hospital.