BANGLADESH

Bangladesh is going to stop producing anti-rabies vaccines as the government is switching to the 'modern' techniques of managing rabies that claims at least 2,000 lives in the country every year.

Disease control director of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Be-Nazir Ahmed told that after 2011, they would not produce nerve-tissue vaccines, "which is proven to have side-effects and WHO declared obsolete".

The World Health Organisation [WHO] recommends replacement of nerve-tissue vaccines with the more efficacious and safer vaccines developed through cell culture as soon as possible.

"The (nerve-tissue) vaccine is also very painful to administer in the abdomen," Be-Nazir said on Wednesday, the World Rabies Day.

He said modern tissue-culture-based vaccine, which is administered intra-dermal, is now available in the country.

"We (Health Directorate) also bought vaccines for free distribution and the local government ministry has allocated Tk 50,000 in each municipality to buy new vaccines."

The Institute of Public Health (IPH), which has been making the nerve-tissue vaccines since 1953, has received a letter on Sep 19 from the health ministry to stop its production gradually, institute's acting director Dr Mohammad Bazlul Haque told bdnews24.com.

"We'll stop it by the end of this year," he said.

Be-Nazir said the DGHS is trying to produce the modern tissue-culture vaccine in the country, "but it needs very sophisticated technology".

He said a local company has shown interest in bringing the vaccine in concentrated form. They will pack it in doses in their plants to cut costs, he added.

The disease control department estimates 200,000 to 300,000 dog-bites every year, and under-15 children are the worst victims.

Experts say rabies is completely preventable, but death becomes inevitable when one is infected with the disease.

"People should stay off dogs, particularly stray dogs, and if a dog bites anyone, the wounds should be cleaned with soap for 10 to 15 minutes. Then the person has to take vaccines," said Dr Mohammad Salimuzzaman, an infectious diseases expert.

Meanwhile, the government has taken strategies to sterilise stray dogs instead of culling to control its population.

At a World Rabies Day seminar in the capital on Wednesday, anti-rabies alliances said killing dogs is an inhuman act and an ineffective practice as well.

They said most of the people go to traditional healers after being bitten by an animal that only allows the condition to deteriorate.