Rabid dogs kill 3 in Karonga

Karonga District Hospital integrated disease surveillance and response officer Raymond Jereni says this month the hospital has registered three deaths resulting from rabid dogs’ bites.

He said the deceased are a 25-year-old woman and two boys aged 5 and 11.

“This is a concern for us. We did not register any deaths related to rabies in the past two years. But we have already registered more than 15 dog bite cases this month,” said Jereni.

He added that there is an increase in the number of dog bite incidents as 245 cases were registered in 2022 and they have already recorded 230 during the half this year.

“During our surveillance exercises, we have observed that there are a lot of unreported dog and pet bite cases. This is risky because we still have many dogs and pets that are not vaccinated against rabies,” saidJereni.

According to World Health Organisation statistics, in Malawi, nearly 500 people die each year due to rabies and out of more than 400 000 dogs in the country, only half of them get vaccinated against rabies annually.

Karonga District Agriculture Development Division principal animal health and livestock development officer Michael Mapundi said some pets were not vaccinated during mass rabies vaccination campaign conducted in March and April this year.

Karonga district director of agriculture, environment and natural resources Raphael Mkisi said dogs and pets are supposed to be vaccinated every year