Animal bites are rising in Mymensingh. From January to August this year, Suryakanta (SK) Hospital in the city treated 20,073 people for animal bites and scratches, 7,056 of them dog bites. Of those treated, 5,955 were under 15.

In the first eight months of last year the figure was 16,570, so cases have risen by about 3,500 in a year. For the whole of 2024 the hospital treated 21,273 people for animal bites, and 29,014 in 2025.

The hospital sees 100 to 150 new patients a day on average: 123 on Monday, 28 September, 142 on Sunday and 162 on Saturday. Besides dogs, patients come with bites or scratches from cats, jackals, mongooses and monkeys. A fifth-grade pupil was recently bitten while feeding a banana to a monkey at the Kathgola-Baniaboard government quarters.

SK Hospital doctor Pragyananda Nath advises washing any bite or scratch with soap and water for at least 15 minutes and going straight to hospital to be vaccinated as the doctor advises. He urged people to avoid folk treatments such as putting salt or burnt chilli on the wound.

Mohammad Mainuddin Khan, assistant director (administration) of Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, said SK Hospital has enough dog-bite vaccine and rabies immunoglobulin and there is no shortage. He also urged people not to tease animals or throw stones at them.

But the district livestock office says the government programme to vaccinate dogs has stopped, and a proposal to restart it has been sent to the government. Without vaccinating dogs as well as people, the source of rabies remains.

Source: Dhaka Mail