Health experts flag need for immediate wound care, medication to fight rabies

Public health experts have called for more awareness creation among the public regarding the importance of immediate wound care and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against rabies in the event of an animal exposure and addressing the systemic gaps in care, as Keralam strives to achieve the goal of rabies elimination and zero human rabies deaths by 2030.

While much of the media attention has been focussed on the human rabies deaths that occurred in the State despite PEP, the actual focus should be on the proportion of the people in the State who do not take PEP after animal exposure, either due to their ignorance or because they were not aware that they were at risk of rabies, S. Harikumar, State Programme Officer, National Rabies Control Programme, said.