Staff in a Manchester hospital have been offered rabies vaccines as a “precautionary measure” after a patient died of the disease.
The woman in her 30’s was admitted to Fairfield General Hospital after being bitten by a dog while on holiday in Goa in India.
She was then transferred to Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Liverpool, where she died on Saturday.
The Health Protection Agency North West (HPA) offered staff the vaccination.
A spokesman for the HPA said: “There is no record of rabies ever being passed from a patient to a healthcare worker, but to be absolutely safe staff in both hospitals who had close personal contact with the patient have been offered rabies vaccine.”
“This really is a precautionary measure and we are able to reassure these staff that if any risk to them existed at all, it would have been very low indeed,” the spokesman told BBC online.
