Bihar Health Authorities are investigating the case of a boy being given a rabies vaccine against rabies in a hospital.
Photo credit: Gulf News Archive
Patna: The health authorities in Bihar ordered an investigation after an underage boy was given a canine vaccine in a government hospital in Bihar. The boy’s disgruntled parents have called for action against the negligent health workers.
Eight-year-old Vishal Kumar, a resident of Padmawat Village, Jamui, was rushed to the city’s main hospital on Wednesday when he was bitten by a street dog.
The doctors on duty prescribed the drugs and asked the boy’s father to buy them as they were not available at the hospital. The man bought the injection for 160 rupees from another medical store on the hospital grounds.
However, the medical supply store staff failed to properly check the drug and gave the boy the rabies injection, which is usually given to dogs. Rabies is a deadly viral disease that attacks the nervous system and is contagious. It is usually transmitted through an animal’s bite, such as a stray dog.
The story came to light when a villager saw the wrapper in the boy’s father’s hand and told him about the mix-up. The man rushed back to the hospital and had his child admitted for treatment.
“We were informed that the boy had been given the injection prescribed for dogs. This is, in fact, a very serious mistake in the medical business that operates on the government hospital premises, ”said Jamui Sadar Hospital Chief Physician Dr. Vinay Kumar Sharma, by phone on Thursday. He said an investigation had been ordered and action would be taken after the investigation report was received.
The boy’s father has filed a formal complaint with senior government officials for punitive action against the negligent medical business. “The medical businesses on the hospital campus play with people’s lives. The government should take tough measures against them, ”the boy’s father, Nukul Ram, told the media.
Jamui, an eastern district of Bihar about 170 km from Patna, was in the news again last week when a large-scale fraud was reported in the investigation of COVID-19 cases that prompted the state government to fire seven health officials . The probe highlighted how fake names were entered into the hospital registers to falsify the test data.
The government fired health officials after local media highlighted apparent irregularities in COVID-19 test data in some Bihar districts where fake names and cell phone numbers were entered in hospital registers. “At a primary health center in Jamui,” 0000000000 “was written as the cell phone number of 28 out of 48 people allegedly tested for COVID-19 on Jan. 16,” the media report said.
