SDH Tral out of anti-rabies serum from last 6 months

BASHARAT RASHID

Tral, 18 May: Despite increasing cases of dog bites in South Kashmir’s Tral area, the hospital authorities are not taking cognizance of the non-availability of anti-rabies serum. The hospital continues short of anti-rabies serum, from the last six months.

Sources told Arising State that the last anti-rabies serum dose in Tral’s hospital was given in the month of November last year, with dog bite victims facing hardships.

As per the official data, available at SDH Tral, 250 persons have been bitten by stray dogs in the last year (from April 2020 to 18 May 2021).

In a recent incident, four persons were injured in a stray dog attack at Dadasara village on Monday, who were shifted to a nearby health unit for treatment.

A family member of one of the dog victims said, “we had to travel to Srinagar to get the anti-rabies serum, as it wasn’t available here.”

One of the locals, Shabir Ahmad rued the absence of anti-rabies serum in the hospital and said that it mostly affects the poor people.

He said that people come here from far-off places of Tral, however, they leave the hospital in disappointment.

District Development Council (DDC) member Tral Block, Dr. Harbaksh Singh while talking to Arising State has assured that he will take up the matter with all the concerned officers.

He said that “lack of anti-rabies serum is the matter of grave concern, which will be taken up with the Director health, CMO, BMO and ADC Tral soon, so that serum can be made available for the people.”

It’s pertinent to mention here that a week back, people in the Tral sub-district resented the lack of Covid-19 vaccine and delay in RTPCR results after the same hospital lacked these facilities amid growing Covid-19 positive cases.