Rahul Sharma, a resident of Malviya road of laxman chowk area of city and a dog bite victim was seen waiting for more bite cases to arrive in the injection room of Doon medical College hospital (erstwhile Doon hospital) on Thursday morning so that he could make a pool to purchase the anti-rabies vaccine from the private medical shop located outside the hospital.
The vaccine which is injected free of cost in the Government hospitals is not available in the biggest hospital of the State. As three to four dosages of vaccine can be made from one vial of the anti rabies vaccine, the patients of bite cases form a pool to purchase it which costs Rs350 in market. “I was bitten by a stray dog last month and I had three out of four mandatory shots of vaccine in the hospital. Today when I arrived in the hospital I saw this message pasted outside the injection room that there is no vaccine in hospital. Now I would have to purchase it from outside,’’ said one of a victim. It is worth mentioning here that patients from far off places of state visit the hospital as very few health centres in the state have capacity to store the vaccine.
The Chief Pharmacist of Doon Medical College hospital, K C Kukreti accepted that anti rabies vaccine is out of stock. He informed that about 100-120 animal bite cases arrive daily in the hospital to have the shot of vaccine. Kukreti disclosed that last consignment of 10 vials was received on January 09 which got used up the same day. Interestingly the hospital stopped purchasing Anti rabies serum last year to save costs. The serum is injected in the wound within ten days of the bite as an extra precautionary measure. The cost of serum is Rs 1500 per vial in the market. However the anti rabies vaccine is very essential and is administered intra dermal or intra muscular four times in a fixed schedule. The vaccine is injected on 0, 3,7 and 28 day of animal bite. The pharmacists working in the hospital said that both Director General (DG) heath office and hospital administration has been informed about absence of essential vaccine but nothing has occurred. The Principal Medical Superintendent (PMS) of the hospital, Dr R S Aswal said that hospital is not in a position to purchase the vaccine and has intimated the higher authorities about the problem.