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Last Updated: Tuesday, 7 February 2006, 16:57 GMT
Holiday man killed by insect bite
A man who may have been bitten by an insect while he was on holiday died a week after returning home, a coroner's court has heard.

Dr Matthew Kernot, 36, from Balham, south London, contracted septicaemia in India in November 2005 and died from multiple organ failure on his return.

Blood tests taken after his return had not shown anything was wrong.

Recording a verdict of death by natural causes, the coroner said it was an unusual and tragic case.

Dr Kernot had been away with his girlfriend Christina Devaney and started developing symptoms - a headache and loss of apetite - while they were on holiday.

The rapid deterioration and death of this man is very unusual, the story is unusual and the outcome is a tragedy
Coroner Paul Knapman

But the day after they got back to the UK, he was feeling well enough to go out for dinner to celebrate their anniversary, the coroner's court heard.

The following day Dr Kernot, a financial analyst, had developed a fever and went to his GP. But blood tests did not show anything was wrong.

By the weekend he appeared to be improving and he told his girlfriend she should go on a pre-arranged trip on the Saturday night, but Dr Kernot's condition quickly deteriorated while she was away.

Ms Devaney called for an ambulance on the train home, but by the time she arrived home, Dr Kernot was dead. A post-mortem examination showed he did not have any tropical disease.

The coroner, Dr Paul Knapman, said: "The rapid deterioration and death of this man is very unusual, the story is unusual and the outcome is a tragedy.

"At some stage, probably in India, he had a bite and whether the creature that bit him injected some bacteria or either by scratching, bacteria got in at some stage, bacteria has got into his bloodstream."

He said Dr Kernot then developed septicaemia which caused his liver, kidney, spleen and heart to fail.



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