Hours before wedding, groom reaches NCH, takes 3rd dose of rabies vaccine

SURAT: Keeping the marriage party bus waiting, Sufiyan Patel directly went to New Civil Hospital in Surat on Saturday morning. The resident of Kosad, who was scheduled to get married in the afternoon, did not want to miss the third dose of rabies vaccine. He had been bitten by a dog on May 6.
“I was returning home from work and walking on the road. Suddenly a dog came from behind and bit my leg. I was worried about the injury and rabies as I was supposed to get married,” Patel told TOI.
Dressed in white clothes with turmeric applied on it, Patel was standing in the queue of nearly 50 people for vaccines on Saturday. On noticing that a bridegroom was standing in the queue, the hospital staff took him on priority for the vaccine so that he could return home early.
Now, around 70 new patients are taking vaccines daily at government hospitals in the city. From around 2,000 monthly average dog bite cases in the city during winter, the number is yet to drop in summer. Normally, in summer, dog bite cases reduce due to change in behaviour of dogs.
Between February 8 and March 22, four children have died due to dog bites — three in the city and one in Surat district.
Under pressure, the health department of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) increased its infrastructure for dog sterilisation. Now a team of five doctors is conducting an average of 70 sterilisation daily. SMC has 590 cages to keep dogs after sterilisation.