Bill wrote:
> This is a sad loss indeed. How did he die? This is the first I've heard of
> it.
According to a follow-up report in the Telegraph, the docs reckon he
contracted hepatitis from an unsterilised dialysis machine in Pakistan.
Paddy
From The Electronic Telegraph 18/8/97:
Pakistani musician's death 'was avoidable'
By Amit Roy
AS Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was buried in his native Pakistan yesterday, it was
revealed in London that the death of the celebrated 48-year-old qawali singer
could have been avoided.
According to medical sources at the Cromwell Hospital in west London, where
Nusrat died on Saturday, the singer had contracted hepatitis from infected
dialysis equipment in Pakistan.
Nusrat, whose mystical Sufi songs in praise of Allah had won him a following
in the West, was a diabetic who needed hospital dialysis treatment twice a
week. He had been hoping for a transplant as soon his health permitted.
In the last 10 years, much of Nusrat's time had been spent in the West,
especially in Britain, where he experimented with the mix of qawali and
Western music. Among his credits were the sound tracks of The last Temptation
of Christ, Dead Man Walking, Bandit Queen and Natural Born Killers.
Nusrat had been a familiar figure in British concerts, notably in his
collaboration with Peter Gabriel, the rock star behind the Womad Festival.
He arrived at the Cromwell Hospital last week and sat "looking very ill in
the waiting area" until he was recognised by a member of staff. The musician
was examined and it was found that his liver had been "aggressively attacked"
by hepatitis.
One hospital source said: "In this country we throw away bits of the
equipment after use but at the hospital in Pakistan they had been re-used
after an attempt at sterilisation. They were obviously infected with someone
else's blood. This is the scandal of Third World countries. The fact he was
grossly overweight did not help with his medical condition."
At Heathrow, a flight was held up for an hour so that Nusrat's body could be
flown to Lahore for his funeral. In Faisalabad, near Lahore, hundreds of
thousands turned out as Nusrat's body lay in state. Thousands wept and many
fainted with grief as the cortege passed.
Tributes were paid by Pakistan's president, Farooq Ahmed Leghari, and by the
prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who described the musician's death as a "national
loss".
At his concerts in Britain, there were no differences between Indians and
Pakistanis. The Shahenshah (Emperor) of Qawali, as he was popularly known, is
being mourned in India, where the Indian Express newspaper said that he
"embodied the spirit of freedom and strove to unite the legacies of India and
Pakistan".