On April 25, Rajni Biki was not far from her home when she was out for dinner at a warung in her neighborhood in south New Delhi, when a dog suddenly pounced on her and she dug her fangs into her wrist. “I immediately went home to rinse the wound with soap and water for fifteen minutes, as recommended by the prevention campaign, then I went to the hospital”, said the mother of five. He went to the public hospital in Safdarjung, one of the main places for rabies, who administered serum, in addition to prescribing four rabies vaccines, which were distributed over a month. He is on his third dose and his wrist still has the hematoma and yellowish scar.
Anti-rabies center, as big as station hall, was in the basement of the hospital and it was never empty. Posters hanging on the wall recall warning instructions: stay away from dogs, don’t touch them, don’t scare them, avoid eye contact. At the reception, a man in a white coat scanned the newcomers’ injuries by the light of his phone’s flashlight and directed them to the injection room. “We receive between three hundred and four hundred people every day”reassured the doctor, who declined to give his name.
Nidhi (who wishes to remain anonymous), quarantined, waiting his turn amidst twenty others injured. He had been attacked in the leg the day before by a street dog and was unable to go to hospital right away due to heavy rains which drowned streets in the Indian capital and paralyzed traffic. He was worried because he knew he had to act quickly. The rabies virus is always fatal once the first signs of the disease are manifested. The most dangerous injuries are those to the face and those that are deep and reach the nerves. If the virus is not stopped in time, the disease infects the nervous system and disrupts the neurons, including those that regulate heart activity.
For six months, the number of dog bites in the Indian capital has increased rapidly. The establishments of Safdarjung and Ram Manohar Lohia, two rabies referral hospitals in Delhi, reported 29,698 and 18,183 cases respectively, nearly as many as in 2022, which totaled 51,000. does not take into account visits to other places or to private clinics. The population of stray dogs in the capital has exceeded half a million.
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