The Shanghai Health Bureau said yesterday three people had died of rabies so far this year.

The latest victim, a 9-year-old boy from Anhui Province, died on August 25, health officials said.

The boy was bitten on his toe by a stray dog his mother had brought to their home in Fengxian District in July, officials said, adding that the parents did not take him to hospital for treatment and a vaccination.

The unnamed boy started to develop symptoms in late August and died in hospital.

Both 2004 and 2005 saw one human rabies case in the city.

"There is a 100 percent mortality rate after the outbreak of the rabies virus," said Dr Wu Shanming, an infectious diseases expert. "Patients always die within one week after the outbreak. People had better be vaccinated within 24 hours after being attacked by a dog. The sooner the treatment the better the prevention. The latent period of rabies is about one to three months, while some people can show symptoms within four days."

Rabies is one of the leading fatal infectious diseases in China. More than 2,500 people die from it every year.

Shanghai witnessed its first human rabies case caused by a dog in 2003, which they said meant the virus was spreading among local animals.

They said that the numbers of people seeking treatment in hospitals for dog bites and receiving rabies vaccinations had also increased annually since 2001.

According to the Shanghai Disease Prevention and Control Center, local medical facilities received 67,030 such patients in 2004 and 99,029 last year. There have been 52,503 patients from January to July this year, increasing by 18.16 percent over the same period last year. The total figure is expected to exceed 100,000 this year.

"Rabies is a preventable disease, if people have their pet dogs vaccinated, avoid close contact with stray animals and visit hospitals soon after being attacked," Wu said. "It is wrong that some people don't seek help if bitten by their own pets. Dogs that don't show any symptoms of rabies may also have the virus."

(Shanghai Daily September 15, 2006)