A Mandalay woman has stirred emotions and debate this week when she posted a now-viral story on Facebook about the sudden death of her brother-in-law after he received a tiny scratch from a puppy he loved.
The post has received nearly 34,000 shares and 24,000 reactions since Sunday.
Daw Mya Lay Khin’s post tells the story of her husband’s younger brother, Ko Zaw Wun, a generator and car salesman who “loved every animal he ever saw” since he was a boy and “had a habit of keeping and raising cats and dogs in his work compound.”
This habit, according to Daw Mya Lay Khin, proved to be his undoing.
“About one month ago, a female dog in his work compound gave birth to three male puppies,” she writes. “Like he always does, he fed the newborn puppies jaggery while chewing his favorite betel. He took the puppies to his work compound and happily watched over the exhausted puppies with love in his heart.”
An unspecified number of days later, Ko Zaw Wun was stricken with unbearable pain all over his body. When he went to the hospital to find out what was afflicting him, the doctor asked him: “Have you been bitten by a dog before?”
Ko Zaw Wun thought back to the puppies in his compound and remembered that when he was feeding them, one puppy mistook his finger for food and scratched him with its tooth.
“I’ve been scratched by dog teeth before,” he said. When he called his work to ask after the health of the puppies, he was told that they and the mother dog had all died, one after the other, about a week earlier.
Daw Mya Lay Khin writes that her brother-in-law’s health steadily worsened. He lost the ability to drink even a drop of water, and the flash from a camera that was taking his passport photo frightened him.
“On the third day, this person who loved animals so much left his body and went further and further away from the human world and the people he loved so much,” she writes. “With all that he gave away in charity, please let him enter into the three pleasant planes of existence.”
Daw Mya Lay Khin’s account never names the disease that allegedly killed Ko Zaw Wun, describing it only as “a disease without a cure” that “cats and dogs tend to get.” However, his symptoms are among those commonly associated with rabies.
She concludes her story with this advice: “Please do not forget to get vaccinated.”
The story has proved polarizing, with many commenters expressing sympathy for the deceased and others expressing doubt about the story’s veracity.
The sympathetic commenters echo Daw Mya Lay Khin’s wish for Ko Zaw Wun to reach an optimal “plane of existence.”
The doubters, on the other hand, say the story is too well-crafted and poetic to be true.
2) Newborn dogs drink their mother’s milk. Can they eat lumps of jaggery yet?
3) If he was scratched by the puppies’ teeth, wouldn’t the mother dog also have died? (Editor’s Note: This commenter obviously didn’t read the post carefully.)
4) How is it possible that we rarely hear about people dying of dog bites from street dogs, but someone like him is the one who dies?
There is a lot to think about.
A third category of commenters interprets the story as a signal to not take any chances.
Both animals and humans can be vaccinated for rabies, but humans generally only receive the vaccine after they are bitten or if they are in a place or occupation that makes them particularly vulnerable to exposure, such as farming or veterinary medicine.
According to the World Health Organization, Myanmar has hundreds of rabies cases every year. In 2015, the Yangon City Development Committee refuted a statistic published by the IRIN news agency that 75 percent of Yangon dogs carry the disease.
If bitten, people who are vaccinated against the disease should get two or three extra injections. Those who are not vaccinated are advised to see a doctor straight away after cleaning the bite with soap and water.
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