Need for a rabies policy

The suspension of four doctors and three health workers in Sindh after five rabies deaths in three weeks is an attempt to patch a much more complex problem. The victims, including two young boys aged five and six, died despite being reported to anti-rabies units. This is because the problem is not just a handful of negligent medics, but a broken system. Consider the case of a 13-year-old boy who received a full vaccination course at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, a major health facility in Karachi, and still died of rabies three months later. Investigations point to several factors, including medication shortages, improper wound washing, counterfeit vaccines and unfit storage temperatures. All of these are systemic failures. Sacking doctors will not fix shortcomings in the cold-chain management system or ensure that rabies immunoglobulin is available at every treatment centre. Sindh has recorded 38 rabies deaths this year alone. For comparison, the entire country of Germany has had one case of rabies all year - in an illegally imported dog. This makes us to question the veracity of PPP leader Taimur Talpur's claim that Sindh's healthcare system exceeds anything in Europe. But it is not just Sindh. Punjab logged an astonishing 38,586 dog-bite cases in just the first quarter of 2026. This is a problem that needs a unified solution. We need a comprehensive national rabies policy that requires vaccination of all pets, higher reserve stocks of vaccines, more public awareness and better surveillance. As for animals, policies such as culling should be taken off the table. They are only effective for a few months, and at the heart of things, they are cruel - thousands of healthy animals die to make work a little bit easier for city officials. The WHO says mass vaccination - at least 70% of all dogs in a region - rather than culling is the best rabies reduction strategy. Vaccinating and neutering existing stray populations would protect them from the disease and effectively let them act as buffers, keeping 'outside' dog packs out, while allowing them to eventually die off without reproducing.