In a follow-up on report earlier this week concerning a 49-year-old farmer from Sri Aman Division who contracted rabies, Malaysian health authorities report he died Saturday at Sarawak General Hospital (HUS). The cause of his death is Rabies encephalitis.

Image/CDC
Image/CDC

The new rabies death brings the death toll 11 of the 12 confirmed cases of rabies among humans in Sarawak since the outbreak was declared in June 2017. The death rate is 91.7 per cent.

In addition, The Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH)  notes there is another suspected rabies patient who was admitted to the HUS ward on August 16, 2018.

The patient is a 44-year-old man from Jalan Matang, Kuching, Sarawak.

According to known information, he had no history of a dog bite or other animal bites; however, he had hit a wild dog that had bitten his wife on January 13, 2018. At that time the patient had an open wound in his right hand. It was reported that the dog died.

The patient did not get any treatment even though he had taken his wife to the hospital for treatment and vaccination. The man began to get ill at his right hand in early August 2018 and has been receiving outpatient treatment on August 6, 2018. His condition has been worse since Aug. 11, 2018 and has symptoms of numbness and weak right hand, can not move, tension in the neck and hydrophobia. He was taken to the HUS Emergency Unit for treatment on 16 August 2018. Tests on clinical samples were conducted to confirm the causes and illnesses.