Eman Ahmed, who was referred to as “the world’s heaviest woman”, died in a hospital in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Officials at the Burjeel Hospital told Scroll.in that she died of septic shock and multiple organ failure.

Twenty specialist doctors had been supervising the Egyptian national’s condition since she arrived in the United Arab Emirates. “She was infected with a very aggressive kind of bacteria,” said Dr Neehad Khawala, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Burjeel Hospital. “There was no plan to discharge her. This was a shock for all of us.”

In February, Ahmed’s family had brought her to Mumbai’s Saifee Hospital, where she underwent weight-loss surgeries. However, a spat between Ahmed’s doctors and her family ended her therapy at the hospital. She was taken to the hospital in Abu Dhabi on May 4.

Dr Khawala said her death was not related to the bariatric surgery she underwent in Mumbai. She weighed 500 kg when she was flown from Alexandria in Egypt to Mumbai. Her doctors in India had said that she had lost at least 300 kg after several procedures in February.

The Burjeel Hospital administration has agreed to take her body to Egypt, where her family will perform the last rites.