A kindhearted 15-year-old girl who befriended a little stray dog in the rain was bitten by the rabid canine and later died last week because no one in her family knew about rabies.

The death has shaken Pudong residents and sent them rushing for rabies vaccinations for dog and cat bites and scratches.

The Pudong Vaccination Center reported an increasing number of requests for rabies shots in the past few days from those who had been bitten by animals.

"We are kept busy all day through receiving visitors and giving them rabies vaccinations," said a doctor surnamed Feng, at the Pudong Disease Control and Prevention Center yesterday.

The Sichuan Province girl, Zhu Chunhong, was bitten by a small stray twice in her leg on her way home from school on September 13. She had tried to comfort the stray dog in the rain.

Her parents didn't clean her wounds or take her to hospital at once.

When she developed a high fever on October 14 and shunned the light - typical symptoms of rabies, or hydrophobia, - her parents still didn't realize the danger and gave her cold pills.

The girl who began to go into convulsions was sent to a hospital in Pudong two days later but doctors failed to find the problem.

They released Zhu since her parents either didn't recall the dog bite, or think to mention it.

Zhu later was admitted to another hospital, but it was too late.

"She soon began to vomit blood and bit her elder brother three times - terminal-stage symptoms of rabies," doctor Feng said.

Residents are urged to stay away from stray animals - dogs, cats, racoons, squirrels and others - and to make sure their own pets get rabies injections.

Most dogs and cats, however, are not rabid. No rabies cases have been reported in the past six months in the city, until this case.

(Shanghai Daily October 26, 2005)