PESHAWAR, Nov 6: A young man died of dog-bite at a Peshawar hospital despite having been administered anti-rabies vaccines, doctors told Dawn.

"Taimur Shah, 17, a resident of Jallozai camp, died in a miserable condition at the Lady Reading Hospital last night. He had been bitten by a dog a few months earlier for which he had received 14 anti-rabies vaccines (ARVs).

"They proved ineffective," said Dr Fayyaz Ali, focal person for the provincial rabies control programme.

A student of class 10, Taimur Shah had been administered 14 ARVs at a government hospital.

It's a matter of grave concern that the ARVs available for dog-bite victims free of cost at public sector hospitals aren't effective for the treatment of rabies, said a casualty medical officer at the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).

"We often prescribe ARVs manufactured by multinational pharmaceutical companies, which cost about Rs4,000. Poor people cannot afford such an expensive vaccine, so they opt for the freely-available ARVs manufactured at the National Institute of Health (NIH)," he said.

According to him, many dog-bite victims end up suffering from hydrophobia which leads to a very miserable death. Most such deaths go unreported, he said.

The locally-made ARVs are administered to rabies patients free of cost and are stated to have hazardous side effects, he said, adding that the vaccines destroy the central nervous system (CNS).

A pharmacist said that a single dose of the vaccine manufactured under the 200-year-old formula, consists of 14 injections, which are administered around the umbilicus. Besides, its mode of administration is also painful as well as faulty, he said.

The only vaccines administered under the universally-accepted safe formula called human deploid cell (HDC) is too expensive for an ordinary person to afford, he said. Two MNCs, Berna of Switzerland and Meriux of France, manufacture the vaccines under the HDC formula costing Rs4,500 and Rs3,200, respectively, for complete dosages, consisting of five injections each.

"It is because of the high cost of the vaccines that even the three teaching hospitals - Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex - do not have the vaccines to administer them to poor dog-bite victims," said the pharmacist.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that these vaccines are not available in rural areas, where most of the people are extremely vulnerable to dog-bites, he said, adding that chemists in the far-flung areas cited the cost factor for not keeping the vaccines' stock.

"People run from pillar to post to find the vaccines. Often, the dog-bite victims die but these cases are reported neither by the press nor the health department," he added. So far, about 500 cases have been reported throughout the province, Dr Fayyaz Ali of the NWFP Rabies Control Programme said.