DogExpress
A 35-year-old woman from Satara died of rabies at the civic body’s Naidu Infectious Diseases Hospital on Monday, a month after she was bitten by a stray dog.
This was the second death due to rabies at the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)-run hospital this year.
Rekha Karche, a resident of Somanthali village in Phaltan taluka of Satara district, had suffered the bite on her forehead. She, however, did not take anti-rabies vaccines and fast-acting rabies antibodies.
“It was a category-III dog bite wound. Despite sustaining a serious bite wound a months ago, she had not taken the anti-rabies vaccination and antibody called rabies immunoglobulin. This is a readymade antibody and is extremely effective in deactivating the virus in a category-III dog bite wound,” a civic health official said.
Karche began developing mild fever and breathlessness a few days before she was admitted to the hospital on April 12.
“Karche had also developed rabies symptoms such as hydrophobia (fear of water). She was extremely breathless at the time of admission. She succumbed to the infection on Monday evening,” an official said.
People bitten by stray dogs are usually injected with a fast-acting readymade antibody and rabies immunoglobulin (RIG) near the wound to deactivate the (rabies) virus. The readymade antibodies are administered to patients for immediate protection because the vaccine generally takes 14 days to produce antibodies.
World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines state that RIG should be administered to patients exposed to category-III wounds, irrespective of the interval between the exposure and the beginning of the treatment.
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in Chandigarh, India. 
