Varanasi tackles rabies surge with free treatment as dog bites spike

Varanasi is in the grip of a rabies crisis that has caught the attention of public health officials across the region. Over the past six months, the Trauma Centre at the Institute of Medical Sciences at Banaras Hindu University has treated more than 600 people bitten by dogs and other animals. But the real alarm came in mid-January, when 63 bite victims arrived for treatment in just five days—a spike so sudden that it forced health authorities to sound the warning bell.

Rabies kills nearly everyone it infects once symptoms take hold. There is no cure at that stage. Yet the disease is entirely preventable if a person receives the right treatment quickly enough. The Trauma Centre has been providing Anti-Rabies Vaccine and Rabies Immunoglobulin free of charge to all eligible victims, following the protocols set out by the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Rabies Control Programme. The centre operates around the clock, and staff follow a strict sequence: immediate wound washing, scheduled vaccination doses, and immunoglobulin administration for the most severe bites, with careful follow-up to ensure patients complete the full course.

Professor Saurabh Singh, who oversees the Trauma Centre, explained that the surge is drawing patients not just from Varanasi itself but from surrounding districts across Uttar Pradesh and neighboring areas of Bihar. The spike in January—those 63 cases in five days between the 10th and 15th—represents a sudden and troubling shift. Singh emphasized that while the centre is equipped to provide life-saving treatment immediately and without cost, the real solution lies elsewhere. The disease cannot be fought one patient at a time in a hospital ward.

What is needed, Singh and other health officials argue, is a coordinated effort that addresses the root causes. Stray dog populations need to be managed. Dogs themselves need to be vaccinated against rabies on a mass scale. The public needs to understand the danger and know how to respond. Pet owners need to take responsibility for their animals. High-risk neighborhoods—places where human-animal conflict is most common—require focused attention from civic and administrative agencies working in concert.

National guidelines are clear about what victims should do. Anyone bitten by a dog or other animal classified as Category II or Category III must wash the wound thoroughly at once and begin vaccination without waiting. For Category III bites, which are the most severe, rabies immunoglobulin is mandatory. The window for prevention is narrow but real. A person who acts quickly can survive. A person who delays or goes untreated will almost certainly die.

The Trauma Centre's data tells a story of a health system responding to an immediate crisis while calling for something larger. Six hundred people in six months is a steady stream. Sixty-three in five days is a warning. Authorities have indicated they will coordinate with local government and civic bodies to implement preventive measures, but the specifics of those measures and the timeline for action remain unclear. For now, the centre continues to treat every patient who arrives, free of charge, following the protocols that work. But Singh's emphasis on the need for collective action suggests that without broader intervention—without addressing the stray dog population, without vaccinating dogs, without changing how people in high-risk areas interact with animals—the spike may not be an anomaly. It may be a sign of what is coming.