The first death of a patient who was diagnosed with the Nipah virus was reported in West Bengal on Friday. The female patient, who was undergoing treatment
at a private hospital in Barasat in the North 24 Parganas district since January, passed away in the afternoon. The 25-year-old deceased lady was herself a nurse by profession and attached to the same hospital. The hospital source says the nurse has died of cardiac arrest in the hospital while undergoing treatment. Source in the Health department has confirmed that, “out of the two Nipah positive cases reported from West Bengal on 11th January, 2026, one of the nurses who was critically ill and was under intensive medical care passed away today due to cardiac arrest in the hospital where she was under treatment.” The deceased lady was originally from Katwa in Purba Bardhaman district. She had travelled to Ghugragachhi village in Nadia district, a rural area close to the India–Bangladesh border, to attend a family wedding. This region is epidemiologically recognised for widespread consumption of raw date palm sap and date palm jaggery, practices that have previously been associated with zoonotic viral spillover in eastern India. However, a definitive history of ingestion of raw date palm sap or jaggery could not be reliably ascertained. Based on the subsequent clinical course, it was suspected that the primary exposure may have occurred during this visit. Following her return, between 18 and 29 December, she reported intermittentmild upper respiratory symptoms described as cough and cold, without documented high-grade fever. A total of two persons, including one male and one female nurse, tested positive for the Nipah virus on 11th January in West Bengal. Both of them were taken to the private hospital, and they were undergoing treatment. After going through intensive medical care, the male patient, who was a resident of East Medinipur district, tested negative twice and got discharged from the hospital after meeting all the criteria for discharge. But the female patient was undergoing treatment at the private hospital. She was on a ventilator for a long time. After about a month of treatment, the female nurse had succumbed due to a heart attack in the hospital.
