In 3 years, rabies killed 60 in Karnataka

BENGALURU: Even as Karnataka grapples with a severe shortage of the antirabies vaccine (ARV), the deadly rabies virus has claimed 60 lives in the state over the past three years.

While Karnataka requires at least 1.5 lakh ARV units annually, it gets a supply of only 1.2 lakh units. Officials admit that government hospitals have minimal ARV units. “There is a severe shortage of ARV units,” says Pankaj Kumar Pandey, commissioner, health and family welfare department.

Yadgir, Ballari worst affected

Karnataka saw 789 cases of rabies between 2016-2018 — there were 22 deaths in 2016, 15 in 2017 and 23 in 2018, say data with the department of health and family welfare. Districts like Yadgir, Ballari, Haveri have been the worst affected. In 2017, there were 175 cases of rabies in Yadgir, 86 in Ballari and 170 in Haveri.

On improving ARV supply, the state has not received any positive response from drug manufacturers. “There are four ARV manufacturers in India. In November 2018, when we floated the expression of interest, none came forward for supply. There was no response to another tender we floated in January. The problem is not unique to Karnataka, but is faced by all states,” said Nagaraj, additional director, Karnataka State Drugs Logistics and Warehousing Society.

Nagaraj added that government hospitals have sufficient funds, disbursed under Arogya Raksha Samithi and National Health Mission for the procurement of essential drugs.

According Dr MK Sudarshan, who has been researching on the burden of human rabies in India, the situation requires intervention by the Centre at the earliest. “This issue cannot be sorted out by the state government. The situation is no different in other states. The central government needs pitch in and include rabies vaccination as a part of universal immunization programme. The supply has to come from the Centre,” says Sudarshan, who heads Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India (APCRI).

“The manufacturing companies will not respond to the state government and hence an urgent meeting has to be called by the Union health ministry with the Rabies vaccination producing companies and ease the vaccine procurement process,” says Dr Sudarshan.

In case of a dog bite, what is first given is the anti-rabies vaccine to prevent infection of rabies. The vaccine works after 14-15 days of its administration. If the bitten person has grievous injuries with bleeding, immunoglobulin injection is administered so rabies virus, if any, can be killed.