Reporting snapshot · 29 September 2026. This article combines Sindh's World Rabies Day warnings with hospital and provincial figures published on 29 September. Province-wide totals are compiled from different facilities and periods, and the official and reported case counts do not fully reconcile. It is a dated snapshot, not a live tracker.
What happened
At least 35 people died of rabies in Sindh in the first nine months of 2026, and reported dog-bite cases across the province passed 200,000, The Express Tribune reported on 29 September, citing hospital and provincial figures. The disclosure came alongside World Rabies Day, marked on 28 September, when Sindh’s chief secretary, Asif Hyder Shah, urged anyone bitten or scratched by a dog to wash the wound at once with soap and running water for at least 15 minutes and then go to the nearest health facility for treatment and vaccination.
“Rabies can be fatal once symptoms appear, making timely treatment essential,” Shah said, according to Dawn, which reported his advisory on 29 September. A spokesperson for the chief secretary said the province’s capacity to treat dog-bite patients had grown by nearly 30 per cent from the first eight months of the previous year.
The Express Tribune put the Karachi caseload at more than 40,000 bites across four major public and welfare hospitals between January and September, including about 14,000 at the Indus Hospital, roughly 10,000 each at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Civil Hospital Karachi, and more than 7,000 at other city hospitals. It reported that 26 of the deaths were recorded at Indus Hospital in Karachi, eight at Jinnah Hospital and one at the Indus Hospital’s Badin campus.
What the province says it is doing
Shah said 278 anti-rabies units had been upgraded across Sindh, with vaccines, wound-washing facilities and trained staff. He said health facilities had treated about 45,000 patients and administered roughly 138,000 doses of anti-rabies vaccine and nearly 5,000 doses of rabies immunoglobulin. The public can call the rescue service on 1122 or use the provincial ARV centre directory at sindharv.com to find the nearest unit, officials said.
Sindh’s senior minister, Sharjeel Inam Memon, said in a separate statement that the provincial government was using all available resources to prevent rabies and had ensured vaccine availability at government hospitals and rural health centres. The ARV Centre Network, maintained by the Sindh Health Department, lists 278 centres across 30 districts and six divisions, including health-department units, public-private facilities and teaching hospitals.
The response is not new. Under a rabies control programme launched in 2022, Sindh has run neutering, spaying and vaccination drives for stray dogs. In May, officials told Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah that more than 25,500 dogs had been neutered or spayed and more than 36,900 vaccinated, and that 11 further centres would open in Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana and other districts, as Dawn reported. Officials also described a digital ARV patient-tracking system intended to monitor bites, vaccine doses and follow-up visits in real time.
Why the numbers do not fully add up
The week’s figures are best read against Sindh’s longer record. In May, the chief minister was told the province had recorded more than 285,000 dog-bite cases in 2025, with more than 22 rabies deaths in major hospitals, and that 85,891 cases had already been documented from January to April 2026. By 22 August, Dawn reported the 2026 death toll had reached 25.
That makes a toll of at least 35 and more than 200,000 cases for January to September a plausible extension of the trend. But the 45,000 patients said to have been treated by provincial facilities does not obviously square with a province-wide caseload above 200,000. Officials did not explain the gap, and the published figures do not identify which facilities or periods each total covers. Two plausible explanations — that many bite victims never seek care, and that different authorities count cases at different levels — cannot be verified from what has been released. The discrepancy is a limitation of the data, not evidence that either figure is wrong.
Why it matters
Rabies is almost always fatal once clinical symptoms appear, but it is preventable with prompt wound care and post-exposure prophylaxis. Doctors in Karachi have repeatedly stressed that victims delay or skip treatment. In August, the head of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre’s emergency centre, Dr Irfan Siddiqui, told Dawn that a boy who died had received some vaccination before reaching hospital, while a man who died had sought no treatment at all after being bitten two months earlier. “Once clinical symptoms appear, the viral infection is almost 100 per cent fatal,” Siddiqui said.
The persistence of preventable deaths also reflects a harder problem: managing a large stray-dog population. Sindh’s health authorities have emphasised vaccination and what the chief minister called humane, scientific and sustainable population control. A Dawn editorial on 28 September described Karachi’s decision to neuter, vaccinate and tag stray dogs as a welcome shift from culling. The debate over how to control the dog population is likely to continue even as treatment capacity expands.
What is still uncertain
The most important unknowns are how many people have actually died of rabies in Sindh this year and how many have been bitten. The 35-death figure rests on The Express Tribune’s reporting; Dawn has not published a matching cumulative toll for September and reported 25 deaths in late August. Neither outlet published a reconciled province-wide dataset, and the provincial government has not released a single consolidated count for the first nine months of 2026. Nor is it clear whether vaccine and immunoglobulin supplies would remain sufficient if reporting improves, or whether the digital tracking system will narrow the gap between bites recorded and patients treated. The figures are a dated snapshot, and later releases could revise them.
Sources & reporting notes
This is a synthesis of published material, not eyewitness reporting. Sources were reviewed on 29 September 2026. The 2026 death toll, the province-wide dog-bite total and the Karachi hospital breakdown rest on The Express Tribune's reporting. The chief secretary's advisory and the treatment, vaccine and unit figures rest on Dawn. The 2025 and early-2026 figures come from Dawn's reporting on the provincial rabies programme. The two outlets' totals cover different facilities and periods and could not be fully reconciled; that limitation is stated in the article.
- Government of Sindh, Health Department — Sindh ARV Centre NetworkAccessed 29 September 2026 · Primary provincial record listing 278 anti-rabies centres across 30 districts and six divisions.
- The Express Tribune — 35 die of rabies as dog-bite cases cross 200,00029 September 2026 · 2026 death toll, province-wide and Karachi case totals, hospital breakdown and calls for dog-population control.
- Dawn — People urged to seek immediate medical care after dog bite, scratch29 September 2026 · Chief secretary's advisory, treatment and vaccination figures, and the senior minister's statement.
- Dawn — Sindh reports over 85,000 dog-bite cases in four months26 May 2026 · 2025 baseline, January–April 2026 figures and the provincial rabies control programme.
- Dawn — 11-year-old dog bite victim dies, a day after man's death at Karachi's JPMC22 August 2026 · Mid-year death toll of 25 and hospital-level case and treatment data.
