KARACHI: Two more dog bite victims lost their lives to rabies on Monday, raising alarm amongst healthcare experts who urged the government to immediately put in place a mechanism for removing stray dogs from the streets and transferring them to designated shelters.

With the latest cases, the total number of recorded deaths from the deadly infectious disease has risen to 42.

Sources said the first victim, a 38-year-old man hailing from Hyderabad, died at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) on Monday.

`Patient Javed was a resident of Hyderabad and was brought to the emergency department yesterday [Sunday] around 11pm with complaints of hydrophobia, irritability, fever and dysphagia [discomfort in swallowing],` shared a JPMCdoctor on the condition of anonymity.

The patient was bitten by a dog on the face four months back and his post-exposure preventive treatment status was unknown, he added.

The other dog-bite victim, the sources said, was 52-year-old Allahbad who was referred from Nawabshah to Liaquat University Hospital, Hyderabad. He passed away on Monday afternoon.

`Govt seems least concerned` `Free-roaming dogs are on a rampage across the province, injuring and killing people, including children, but the government seems least concerned,` regretted Dr Mirza Ali Azhar, representing the Pakistan Medical Association.

Dr Azhar, who is also part of a civil society initiative against rabies, emphasised that the problem was not rabies but the stray dogs attacking people.

`In 99 per cent of cases in our environment, rabies is a consequence of a dog bite. If there is no dog injury, there would be no rabies. Hence, we have to ensure that there is no dog on the street that could pose a threat to citizens.

According to him, the solution to the complex issue is simple.

`Just catch dogs, isolate them and put them in designated shelters, where they could be neutered and fed by animal rights activists and local authorities,` he said.

Dr Azhar also referred to a recent IndusHospital study, which has shown a high prevalence of rabies virus in Karachi`s street dogs.

`The findings pointed to substantial virus burden in stray dogs that underlines the need for urgent action to control the dog population,` he said.

The research, titled `Detection of Rabies Virus RNA in Dog-Bite Wounds in a RabiesEndemic Area: Evidence from an Observational Cohort Study,` revealed a strikingly high level of rabies virus circulation in the local canine population, with the virus detected in 64pc of samples.

Earlier, a 38-year-old man hailing from Diplo, Tharparkar, a 12-year-old boy from Hyderabad and a resident of Baldia town, Karachi, in his 70s, died of rabies.

A large number of rabies cases, experts say, go unreported as patients use home remedies or turn to faith healers for `treatment`.

They emphasised the need for public awareness, humane control of the dog population and the availability of appropriate treatment in hospitals.

While dog bites account for the majority of rabies cases, bites from potentially rabid wild animals can also transmit the virus.

After exposure, early wound cleansing, timely rabies vaccination and the administration of rabies immunoglobulin, if needed, can effectively prevent the disease, which is almost invariably fatal once clinical symptoms appear.