Dog bite claims another life in Bangalore

Karnataka’s Health Minister R Ashok came under fire after another boy died due to dog bit in Bangalore on Friday, taking the total number of children succumbing to the canine menace in the City to three in the last six months.

Three-and-a-half-year-old Ajay, son of a driver and a maid servant, was playing in front of his house in Kamalanagar in Bangalore on Monday when was bitten all over the body by a rabid dog. The parents, who realized that the child had been bitten by a dog only after they returned home in the evening, took him to the Vani Vilas Hospital for treatment.

Though he was given three doses of anti-rabies vaccine, he had begun frothing from the mouth on Thursday following which the child was rushed to Epidemic Isolation Hospital. The boy breathed his last on Friday after the virus spread to his central nervous system. The doctors at the Epidemic Isolation Hospital said it was too late by the time the child was brought to them. “What could have saved him is a five-dose regime as three doses are simply inadequate to fight the infection”, a doctor said.

Ajay’s death has triggerred a protest against the Government authorities for the continued neglect of dog menace in Bangalore, which is reaching threatening proportions.

Scores of Congress activists gathered outside Kumarakrupa Guest House in Bangalore on Saturday seeking Health Minister R Ashok’s resignation. Holding aloft banners and shouting slogans, the demonstrators urged Ashok to resign from his post owning moral responsibility for the Government’s failure to arrest the dog menace in Bangalore, which has so far claimed the life of three children.