Brit tourist rushed to hospital in Egypt after developing flesh-eating disease from potential spider bite at home in UK

Nigel Hunt, from the Isles of Scilly, believes he was bitten on his stomach while in bed at home on 30 August. The 59-year-old window installer said the bite "wasn't painful" and he had originally "felt OK", but became "violently sick" on his way to his holiday in Egypt four days later.

He said his stomach was operated on after doctors feared an abscess had formed but it was eventually diagnosed as necrotising fasciitis, also known as the "flesh-eating disease". Mr Hunt believes the culprit may have been a spider and said the bite to his stomach felt like a "nip".

After being unable to find what may have bitten him he said he continued his day as normal, catching the ferry to Penzance before travelling to Bristol Airport. He said there was redness near the bite, which he treated with antihistamines and painkillers, but he otherwise felt normal before waiting to board his flight.

He told the BBC: "That's when I started to feel nauseous and ended up in the toilets being violently sick. I spent the next six hours with my head in numerous sick bags."

When he arrived in Egypt he went to a pharmacy where he was prescribed antihistamine cream for bites. The next day, he started feeling unwell again so he went to a clinic and was given an injection.

His sickness subsided but he was admitted to hospital three days later, he said. Mr Hunt said doctors diagnosed him with necrotising fasciitis, which the NHS describes as a "life-threatening infection that can happen if a wound gets infected".

Dr Tim Cockerill, senior lecturer in Natural History at Falmouth University, told the BBC it would be "impossible to identify the original cause of the wound" once the infection had set in. However, he noted that necrotising fasciitis was caused by a bacterial infection in a wound, so "not something caused directly by a bite from a spider".