A four-year-old girl from Davanagere, who had been fighting for her life for nearly four months after a stray-dog attacked her, has died of rabies at Bengaluru’s Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health (IGICH).
The victim, Khadeera Banu of Shastri Layout, was attacked on April 27 while playing outside her home. According to a Times of India report, the dog bit her on the face and other parts of the body, critically injuring her. Initially treated in Davanagere, she was later shifted to IGICH in Bengaluru for advanced care.
Dr. Keshav of IGICH explained that Khadeera was admitted on April 28 with a history of rabies despite earlier treatment. He said confirmatory tests, including a CSF fluid test, showed rising titres that confirmed the infection.
At that stage, she was stable and discharged for home care, but her condition worsened in August when she returned in a deeper encephalopathic state, unresponsive and requiring emergency intubation.
According to him, the child had developed “dumb rabies”, a form of the disease that causes paralysis rather than aggression, and she eventually died on Sunday afternoon.
Between January and August this year, Karnataka recorded 2.8 lakh dog bite cases and 26 suspected rabies deaths, according to the State Surveillance Unit’s infectious disease report.
In response to a surge of similar incidents in Delhi-NCR, the Supreme Court on August 11 directed authorities to remove all stray dogs from public spaces within eight weeks and relocate them to shelters.
The court further ruled that sterilised and vaccinated dogs could not be returned to their original locations, marking a departure from the existing Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules.
The order has triggered strong backlash from animal welfare groups and legal experts, who called the directive inhumane and impractical given the shortage of shelters and staff.