Rabies raises its ugly head once more.

A three-year-old girl died at the Sungai Petani Hospital, Kedah of rabies on the 8th of January 1998. She had been bitten by a stray dog outside her house in Padang Lembu on 29 Nov 19971• She was the fifth victim in three years. Three people bitten by one stray dog died of rabies in 1997 in Kota Setar, Kedah. In the year before that there was one death from rabies also from Kota Setar. Previous to that a 68-year-old man died of rabies in 1992 after he was bitten by a dog in Guar Cempedak, which is also in Kedah. In all these cases rabies had not been suspected at the time of the dog bite and neither rabies vaccination nor immunoglobulin had been given. Public awareness especially among medical practitioners had been lacking. There had been no cases of rabies in humans in Malaysia from 1981 to 1989.