A six-year-old boy from Kusmara village in Auraiya district died on Tuesday, nearly three weeks after being bitten on the neck by a stray dog, despite receiving three doses of the anti-rabies vaccine. The child, identified as Anmol, succumbed during treatment at Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital.

According to his family, the incident took place on October 24 when Anmol, the youngest of three brothers, was playing outside his home under the Ruruganj police outpost limits. A stray dog allegedly attacked him from behind and bit him deeply on the neck. His father, Dhirendra Pratap Singh, immediately took him to the community health centre in Bidhuna, where doctors cleaned the wound and administered the first anti-rabies injection.

He received two more doses on October 28 and November 3, but his condition worsened within days. After initial treatment at the district hospital, he was shifted to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, where he died on Tuesday evening. His body was brought back to the village and cremated on Wednesday at noon.

“The dog bit him on the neck so badly that blood wouldn’t stop flowing. We gave him all the injections as advised, but nothing worked,” said his father, Dhirendra Pratap Singh.

Dr Shailendra Tiwari, chief medical superintendent of UHM hospital in Kanpur, said dog bites on the face and neck are particularly dangerous. “In such cases, the rabies virus reaches the brain very quickly, leaving little time for the vaccine to act. That may have happened here,” he said.