HOW can the bite of a puppy bring so much pain and death?

Mazlan Puzen and Elisa John are still asking this question three weeks after burying their two young children – six year-old Monica and four year-old Jackson – Sarawak’s first two rabies victims.

Sitting on the floor of their sparsely furnished ramshackle bamboo house with the framed photos of the two children still on a makeshift altar on one side of the room, the couple from Kampung Paon Rimu, Bakong, about 30km from Serian, wondered if their fortune would have been any different had they known what rabies was all about.

The siblings died mere minutes apart on July 4, after the family gave the consent to have their life support system switched off. They were already brain dead.

“It was a family decision. We asked their grandmother, all their uncles and aunties for their opinion and agreement whether we should remove the life support system as advised by the doctors,” 37 year-old Elisa said.

“We didn’t want to be accused later of killing them,” she said.

The tragic chain of events happened sometimes just before the main Dayak harvest festival of Gawai.

Elisa wanted to do some errands and needed someone to babysit nine-month-old Erna, the youngest of her six children.

Her mother, who lives with a brother about 500m away in Kampung Paon Rimu was her usual babysitter.

It was while at the house to deliver Erna that a “cuddly little puppy” bit Jackson on his right ankle.

“It was a small bite that didn’t look too serious,” Elisa said.

“Getting bitten by a dog is quite common in the village and since the bite marks were small, we didn’t make a fuss of it.”

The wound was left untreated.

Later in the afternoon, when she went back to her brother’s house – with Monica in tow – to fetch Erna, Monica in turn was bitten.

However, this time Elisa wasn’t too sure whether it was one of the four “cuddly” puppies or the mother that bit Monica.

“By the time we rushed out to find out what the commotion was all about, the animal that had bitten Monica had bolted off.”

Like her younger brother, Monica was also bitten around her ankle and, like Jackson, the wound was also left untreated.

When Jackson came down with a fever a few days after Gawai, Mazlan sent him to a health clinic about 3km away in neighbouring Kampung Pridan for treatment.

He was given Panadol, some vitamins and sent home. However, his condition, did not improve.

Two days later, Mazlan took Jackson to the heath clinic in Balai Ringin, 10km away.

Again he was prescribed some painkillers and sent home.

His condition got worse. He had breathing difficulties, acted strangely, hallucinating and didn’t want to drink.

On June 8, Mazlan took Jackson back to the Balai Ringin clinic, but this time he was referred to Serian Hospital.

The next day, he was transferred to Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) in Kuching.

Monica, on the other hand, reportedly came down with fever on June 12 and, like Jackson, was taken to the Balai Ringin clinic for treatment.

When she showed the same symptoms as her brother, she too was immediately rushed to SGH.

“I missed them terribly. There is so much emptiness now,” Mazlan said.

“Those two were my favourites and were closest to me.”

Monica is the fourth and Jackson is the second youngest among six siblings.

The odd job worker said Jackson was particularly close to him.

He said Jackson would always want to follow him everywhere he went, even when he went to work or look for odd jobs to help feed his family.

“When he knew I was about to go out, he would rush to my motorcycle and sit on it hoping to force me to take him.

“He would cry if I didn’t and that always tugged at my heart.

“Those cries or him sitting behind hugging me tight on the motorcycle are haunting me now.

“Even though three weeks have passed, I feel as if he’s still around, out there outside the house playing.”

Mazlan also said how he once grabbed his motorcycle keys to rush to Monica’s pre-school to fetch her home when he saw the clock was 12 noon.

“After I picked up the keys, I suddenly realised she was no longer there.

“I asked myself: ‘What am I doing? She’s already dead’.

“I’m tormented right now.”

Mazlan said he tried dealing with his depression by getting out of the house and going somewhere where he could have “some peace of mind”.

The house brings a lot of painful memories of the children.

The couple said their world was shattered the day doctors at SGH told them their children had rabies and there was no hope for recovery.

“They are going to die,” Elisa remembered saying to herself.

The rabies outbreak in Sarawak has so far claimed four lives, all children under the age of 6.

A fifth victim, a 52 year-old man, reportedly died last night. However, this has yet to be confirmed by the health ministry or the state’s disaster management committee.

The man from Kampung Remun in Serian was reportedly bitten by a dog in early May this year.

He was admitted to SGH on July 11 after he complained of weak limbs, numbness and a backache, as well as confusion.

He was confirmed to have rabies on July 8.

More could die as a 45-year-old man and a 9 year-old boy have reportedly been admitted to SGH, having fallen sick after being bitten by dogs.

The two are from border villages in areas that are declared rabies-infected.

The outbreak started in Serian district, about 98km from Kuching but has now reached the state capital.

The disease is believed to have been brought over from Kalimantan by infected dogs.

Kampung Paon Rimu Bakong is only about 5km from the Sarawak-Kalimantan border and Elisa believed sick strays or pet dogs belonging to Indonesian oil palm plantation workers, who cross the border to work in Sarawak plantations, are responsible for infecting her brother’s pet dogs which killed her children. – July 24, 2017.