NGOZI February 20th (ABP) – Seven people bitten by stray dogs are currently being treated at Ngozi Autonomous Hospital (north), according to Dr. Guillaume Ntawushiriryayo, director of that health facility. They are five adults and two children from all the neighboring communes of Mwakiro and Buhinyuza in Muyinga province (north-east).
According to Dr. Ntawushiriryayo, they were transferred to that reference hospital because the health units in Muyinga locality do not have anti-rabies vaccines to prevent the rise of rabies venom into the brain. These patients, he said, are in a state of total precariousness, with no financial resources for treatment, sleeping and blanketing equipment. He asks the benefactors to support those people for food, blankets or even the transport fare once they have returned to the places of origin. He says he is ready to ask for rabies vaccines for the locality of Muyinga so that the victims of the rabid dogs are no longer sent to Ngozi, lest the numbers increase rapidly, since the rabid dogs are numerous in Buhinyuza and Mwakiro.
The administrator of the Mwakiro commune is also ready to help those patients. He says that a rescue committee has been set up to see ways to help the victims of the rabid dogs that are counted by dozens in his commune.
The medical director of Muyinga Hospital does not support those patient transfers to Ngozi because the hospital is able to treat those cases. The administration, the veterinary services and the people should see how to find a solution to that problem and proceed, as soon as possible, with the slaughter of stray dogs and the vaccination of healthy dogs to protect the people.