From the blog of Dr. Joshua Sule, our newest Evangel consultant

Today we lost a young girl, 13 years of age, who had rabies infection. We'll call her Ambe. It all started four months ago when a rabid dog bit Ambe at a town two hours away from here. At the time of the bite, her parents did not seek medical help because they thought the bite was trivial, so the girl got only an injection against tetanus. Meanwhile the same dog had bitten two of her siblings! The dog was eventually killed but it wasn't taken to the vet.

Two weeks ago Ambe started complaing of weakness, irritability and poor sleep. The family had gone to several places for help before they came to our hospital. When we saw her, she had hydrophobia (fear of water), was very restless and had difficulty breathing. She was obviously at this stage there was little we could do. We were worried about the other kids though they were asymptomatic. The question was whether giving them the rabies vaccine would be helpful. We searched the literature but did not find any study supporting it, but still went ahead and started the vaccine for them. The parents were very worried despite our explanations and felt we could still do something and not let their daughter die. It was hard and painful seeing this young, once energetic girl now unable to eat, drink or sleep. We tried to give her medicines to sleep but it wasn't helpful.

Over the last two days her condition worsened. She could barely talk and became very weak. Shortly before she died, she had a convulsion and never recovered from it. I cried as I saw her parents and friends. I wished I could have done more to save her life but it was beyond me. The most painful part was the fact that if she had gotten the vaccine at the time of the bite maybe, just maybe that could have saved her life. It reminds me of the poor state of our healthcare and the large number of preventable deaths we see on a daily basis. What a sad day.

Keywords : rabies, Africa, Nigeria,

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