Journey to Peace Village

A week ago Saturday I was bitten by a dog. This led me to experience anxiety about an overlooked health problem--rabies.

I'd gotten a wide range of immunizations when I left the United States, but unfortunately rabies wasn't one of them--the shots are quite expensive, and who thinks they're going to get bitten by a dog?

We think of rabies as kind of a joke. Foaming dogs chasing people, people turning into werewolf wannabes, etc. It's not really a laughing matter, especialy in the developing world. Unfortunately, rabies is a serious health issue here in Vietnam--as it is in most developing nations in Asia and Africa. I washed the wound out and went to the doctor. I was lucky--the dog is a neighbor's and is kept inside most of the time. So the dog's health could be monitored just to make sure he didn't have the disease. The only treatment left to me was to get a series of five vaccinations--I've had three already and will complete the treatment next month.

I was still anxious about the whole situation, because if the dog had rabies--well, there's no good way of saying it, the disease is fatal 99% of the time.

So I got educated in a hurry about an overlooked disease. According to the World Health Organization, more than 55,000 people die of rabies every year, most in Asia and Africa. Between 30-60% of deaths occur in children under 15. This is largely due to the fact that dogs are not routinely vaccinated for rabies as they are in the West.

Ten million people per year receive post exposure treatments (I'm one of this lucky group now).

For more info about this overlooked disease:

http://www.worldrabiesday.org/

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs099/en/

Labels: health, Viet Nam and the West