A special unit has been set up at the Kalubowila Teaching Hospital (KTH) to treat people affected with rabies, a spokesman for the hospital said yesterday and added that formerly there were 50 to 60 patients visiting the Hospital for anti-rabies treatment per month.

All these patients were admitted to surgical wards resulting in overcrowding and the need for more beds. He pointed out that this had also led to the over use of the anti rabies treatment (mainly the serum) and the government spent around Rs. 15,000 on each rabies patient — "and it cannot afford wastage," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said the main cause for wastage in the treatment, which costs 12% of the Health budget, was that the doctors did not have the proper training. This causes doctors to over prescribe the necessary type of treatment when a patient come to the hospital OPD after being bitten by a dog (or even licked).

However, the Kalubowila Teaching Hospital took the initiative to send six medical officers under the directive of KTH Director, W.G. Gunawardane to the Medical Research Institute (MRI) to receive a special training from Consultant Virologist, Omala Wimalaratne, the spokesman said. The two week training program commenced on September 1 while the program has been implemented at KTH during the last two weeks of this month.

"Once you get rabies it is definite death. You can only try and prevent the disease," the KTH spokesman pointed out. If a person is bitten by an animal suspected to be a carrier of the virus the best course of action would be to get immediate treatment (within 72 hours).

The spokesman claimed that KTH had experienced a drastic drop in the use of anti rabies serum (more than four times less than the usual amount) after this pilot project had been implemented in the hospital..

The Health Ministry said earlier that there were around 2.5 million dogs in Sri Lanka while there were around 2,000 dog bite victims per day. However, the on going rabies vaccination program could only cater for 500 dogs.