No more rabies deaths

The state’s failure to provide rabies vaccine is an act of negligence that the people cannot tolerate.

A 48-year-old man from Chandragiri recently succumbed to rabies infection after failing to secure a vaccine in his locality following a bite from a puppy. When he reached the Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital (STIDH)—Nepal’s only public hospital dedicated exclusively to treating communicable, tropical and infectious diseases—the symptoms had manifested, and his fate was sealed. Medical science has rendered rabies entirely preventable through timely post-exposure prophylaxis. A death as such is an indictment of a state that has allowed a preventable disease to become a death sentence.