Rabies victim turned away from hospital twice Mrs Ubhi, a housewife, underwent treatment in an isolation unit at University College Hospital in central London, but died on May 27 this year. Mrs Ubhi's son Gurpreet told the inquest at St Pancras Coroner's Court her family was "totally distraught." He said: "What happened was a tragedy. It was very rare. My mum was a strong person. This is probably the only thing that kept my mum down. Mr Ubhi said his mother travelled to India in March to visit family and petted the dog which had been given to her brother by a neighbour. He said: "It wasn't a bite as such. It was actually a pup which was so small she could hold it in the palm of her hand, not a big dog as has been depicted. She was playing around with it and there was a slight nick on her arm. It was so minute it didn't even register to her to get it checked out. Back in England Mr Ubhi said his mother seemed fine until a week-and-a-half before she got seriously ill. She said she had pain in her arm. In hindsight you think "I could have done so much more" but at the time we still didn't think anything of it. I told her to take a paracetamol and go to bed and said in the morning you'll be fine. But the next day Mrs Ubhi's symptoms had got worse and she complained of a burning sensation in her arm. Her son said: "That's when she actually told me what had happened in India three months ago." The mortality rate of rabies is almost 100 per cent if people who are bitten do not seek help within a few weeks of the symptoms starting to show. The viral infection is spread by infected animals to humans most commonly by biting or scratching. It can also be spread by animal saliva coming into contact with a graze or cut on a human's skin. As well as other symptoms some victims also develop hydrophobia, a fear of water. There are about 55,000 cases of rabies worldwide, but half occur in India. The last known case of rabies in England occurred in July 2005 when a woman from Manchester died after contracting it from a dog bite in the Indian resort of Goa. In 2002, David McRae became the first person to die of the disease in Britain for 100 years after being bitten on the hand by a rabid bat in Scotland. Since 1946, 24 people have died after being infected with rabies abroad. Four of these were since 2000.