The Dilemma of Dog-Bite Injuries and Rabies
Authors: Dr. Waqas Ahmad, Muhammad Umer, Muhammad Kashif Ali
Date: September 30, 2025
Rabies is a neglected, underestimated, and ignored public health problem, especially in the developing world. World Rabies Day marks the commitment, ownership, and passion to eliminate the ever-increasing incidence and prevalence of dog-mediated human rabies at the global level. Free-roaming dogs in Asian and African countries cause most of the animal bite injuries in human victims.
Since this terrifying disease follows the causal pathway of pain, fear, and depression from a single bite inflicted by an animal on a human, it is essential to highlight the risks, challenges, and complications that exist between the animal and the human victims. The relationships between a pet animal and its owner are vital to understand and mitigate the bite injuries caused by owned animals. However, on the other hand, the interactive behavior between a free-roaming animal or dog and an ordinary citizen is far more significant because the risks of multiple bite injuries to nearby individuals are much higher compared to a pet animal. We need to break up this chain of bite injuries through education, community engagement, responsible animal ownership, animal welfare practice, and holistic One Health research in endemic areas of the world. As a responsible citizen of any nation, it is our moral duty to spread positivity, love, and care not only for the free-roaming dogs, as well as the free-roaming animals that are part of our community. Sharing the message of this responsibility and keeping a sense of positive behavior towards animals or dogs intact ensures a safe, healthy, and nurtured society and fosters the global target to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies by the end of 2030.
Various locations of category II dog bite injuries to multiple age groups of humans presented in the district headquarters hospital, Narowal, to seek anti-rabies vaccines and wound management (image credits: Muhammad Kashif Ali)