Woman dies after contracting brain-damaging virus spread through fruit

A nurse infected during a recent outbreak of the brain-damaging virus Nipah in India has died, following a weeks-long coma, health official has said.

The 25-year-old woman nurse contracted the virus in late December after coming into contact with an infected date sap.

Although she later tested negative for the virus, officials said she developed multiple complications and died on Thursday following a lung infection and cardiac arrest.

While her colleague, who was also infected with Nipah, was discharged last month.

The nurse’s death marks the second reported death from Nipah since a small outbreak began in West Bengal.

Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a woman in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, had also died after contracting the virus.

WHO said no people the patient came into contact with tested positive for Nipah, also called NiV.

Countries including Thailand, Nepal, Taiwan and Pakistan have introduced health screening measures at airports in response to the outbreak. However, the WHO and independent experts have stressed that the risk of a wider pandemic remains low.

Dr Efstathios Giotis, a lecturer in life sciences at the University of Essex, stressed that Nipah outbreaks have always been ‘geographically limited’.

“At present, the Nipah virus does not pose a risk to the UK,” he said. “While viruses can change over time, Nipah does not currently spread easily between humans, which makes a global pandemic unlikely.

“Ongoing surveillance, rapid outbreak response, and strong public health systems remain key to keeping the risk low.”

Historically, there have been no confirmed cases outside Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.

The UK Health Security Agency advises travellers to affected countries to avoid contact with fruit bats, wash fruit thoroughly before eating, and avoid consuming raw or partially fermented date palm sap.

There is currently no mention of Nipah in the Foreign Office’s travel advice for India.