Rabies suspectedly claimed two lives in Bali on Sunday, with one victim said to have been bitten by a dog as late as two years ago.
The two victims, I Wayan Laut from Klungkung and I Putu Dewen from Bangli, died at RSUP Sanglah hospital, Denpasar. Both were taken there in critical conditions.
The clinical symptoms show that they have been infected with the rabies virus, Ken Wirashandi, the Rabies Problem Tackling secretary in RSUP Sanglah, said Monday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.
Ken said that the family of I Wayan Laut informed that the latter was bitten by a dog three months ago but was not given any vaccine at that time. Laut began showing clinical rabies symptoms, such as seizures, four days before his death, he said.
Dewen was said to have been bitten by a dog two years ago. a day later the dog died. Dewen too was not treated with vaccine.
Head of the Bali Husbandry Agency Putu Sumantra said that the agency promptly deployed monitoring teams in the field following the incident to prepare for dog vaccinations.
However, he said that he was still waiting for lab tests of the victims blood and saliva samples to confirm rabies was the cause of death.
Sumantra waved off the notion that the incidents served as proof that vaccination programs had failed.