Police personnel guarding polio team injured in Karachi dog attack
- By Anwar Khan -
- Feb 07, 2026
KARACHI: Even those serving society to eradicate the lethal disease of polio are not safe from the rising menace of dog bites. A police personnel deputed to safeguard polio workers was injured in a dog attack in the Quaidabad area of Karachi on Saturday, ARY News reported.
Aftab Gohar, in-charge of the Dog Bite Clinic at Indus Hospital, stated that the victim is 21 years old and sustained “Grade 2” wounds in the attack. The policeman has since been administered the anti-rabies vaccine (ARV).
The clinic in-charge noted a troubling trend, stating: “Whenever a polio campaign is launched, we see polio volunteers reporting to our facility after falling victim to dog bites.”
He further mentioned that a female polio worker was also bitten in October last year.
This follows a previous incident in Korangi where another female worker was wounded. In total, two to three polio workers have recently faced similar attacks.
It is pertinent to mention that Karachi has reported as many as 4,000 dog bite cases in just one month. So far this year, two people have lost their lives due to such incidents.
Earlier in the previous year, stray dogs attacked and injured two children on the premises of Karachi University.
Stray dogs severely injured a five-year-old boy by mauling his face, while a young girl named Hoorain was bitten on the foot and wounded.
The medical officer has written a letter to the university administration, stating that the five-year-old boy was attacked by dogs, resulting in facial injuries.
The medical officer further reported that Hoorain was also injured after being bitten by a stray dog, and urged the university administration to take action against stray dogs on campus.
It is worth mentioning that a few months ago, a first-year Food Science student at Karachi University fell out of fear of stray dogs, sustaining head injuries as a result.
In a tragic incident, an 8-year-old child was killed by a pack of stray dogs while walking home in Basti Mardan.
The young boy, named Shehbaz, was attacked near his home under the jurisdiction of the Ahmad Hor Lama police station and his body was later found in nearby fields.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan has reported a significant rise in dog bites cases.
According to sources in the National Institute of Health (NIH), 7,815 cases of dog bites were reported nationwide last week.