FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) – An 80-year-old Fall River woman died of West Nile virus earlier this month, the state’s first death from the mosquito-borne disease since 2003, state health officials said on Saturday.

The woman, whose name was not released by officials from the state Department of Public Health, died at a hospital on Oct. 6, department spokeswoman Donna Rheaume said.

The woman’s death was the first in the state from West Nile since 2003 because there were no confirmed cases of the disease in humans in the state last year, said Alfred DeMaria, the department’s director of communicable disease control.

There have been five confirmed human cases this year – two in Newton, one in Boston and one in Watertown – but just the one death.

The chances of contracting the disease this late in the year are very low, DeMaria said, but the danger will not be gone until the first hard frost.

Most people who contract the disease from a mosquito bite show no symptoms. About 20 to 30 percent have flu-like symptoms including fever, chills and achiness.