Foreign visitors to India are unaware of rabies risk

Foreigners visiting India need to be sensitised to the persistence of rabies as a serious public health problem in India, doctors said last week. A British woman died last Saturday of rabies contracted during a trip to Goa earlier this year.

The 39 year old woman from Bury, Greater Manchester, had been bitten by a dog in Goa and became unwell after her return to the United Kingdom. She was diagnosed with rabies and had treatment at the Walton Centre for Neurology in Liverpool.

“There are clear guidelines from the World Health Organization that European and North American travellers to the Indian subcontinent take pre-exposure vaccinations against rabies,” said Shampur Madhusudana, a virologist at the Indian National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences.

“Unfortunately, most foreigners visiting India remain oblivious to the risk of rabies even after they've come …