Bitten by dog, missed vaccine: Gujarat labourer develops rabies, bites iron bars, walks on all fours

PALANPUR: A 27-year-old labourer in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district was admitted to a government hospital on Saturday after developing severe rabies symptoms, including animal-like behaviour.

According to news agency PTI, Deva Dungri, who worked in Narasal village in Palanpur, had been bitten by a dog three months ago. He was brought to Banas Medical College and General Hospital around 3 am. Doctors, including Dr Sunil Joshi, said his chances of survival are slim.


According to hospital authorities, the patient exhibited abnormal behaviour, including involuntary vocalisations, which the general public might describe as "barking", and disoriented movements that appeared like walking on all fours.

Villagers restrained him before bringing him to the hospital in Palanpur, where treatment was initiated.

However, Dungri’s rabies symptoms worsened at the hospital, and he became increasingly aggressive. He was moved to an isolated ward, where he even began biting the iron bars of a window, Dr Sunil Joshi said.

Video clips of the patient have gone viral on social media.

The hospital sought assistance from the police and forest department to control the patient, including the possible use of dart injections for additional sedation, officials said.

The man was restrained with mesh and wire and sedated with an injection. “His treatment is ongoing,” said Dr Sunil Joshi, adding that rabies is almost always fatal once clinical symptoms appear.

Doctors confirmed that the patient had been bitten by a dog nearly three months ago but did not receive anti-rabies shots, which led to the onset of the disease.

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes rabies as a highly fatal viral zoonotic disease that causes progressive inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, severely affecting the central nervous system in humans and other mammals.

(With agency inputs)