According to the state health authorities on Wednesday, a transplant recipient from Michigan passed away after contracting rabies from the new organ in December.
In a statement, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Lynn Sutfin said, “A public health investigation determined they contracted rabies through the transplanted organ.”
According to the agency, the patient passed away in January after receiving the transplant at an Ohio hospital in December.
The recipient’s identify and the kind of organ that was transplanted were not disclosed in the announcement. It said that the contributor did not live in Ohio or Michigan.
According to Sutfin, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the health departments of Michigan and Ohio “worked closely” together on the patient’s death inquiry. The diagnosis was verified by the CDC’s Rabies Laboratory.
“Health officials worked together to ensure that people, including health care providers, who were in contact with the Michigan individual were assessed for possible exposure to rabies,” according to the statement. “Post exposure preventive care, if appropriate, has been provided.”
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Humans can contract rabies from infected animals like skunks, bats, raccoons, or stray dogs if they come into contact with their saliva or blood.
Since fever, headache, and nausea are some of the early signs of the virus, it is not often immediately obvious if a person has rabies.
Patients then have hallucinations, excessive salivation, and trouble swallowing as the condition worsens.
Rabies is deadly if a person is not treated right away after being bitten or scratched by an animal that may be infected.
According to the CDC, the annual number of deaths from it has decreased to less than 10 in recent years, from several hundred before 1960.
In the United States, potential organ donors are examined for germs, viruses, and other illnesses; however, rabies is typically not one of those tests, partly due to the lengthy test and the low prevalence of the infection in humans.
In a similar vein, a kidney transplant recipient in 2013 passed away after catching rabies from the organ.
It wasn’t until the recipient’s death was investigated that the cause of death was identified, but the donor was confirmed to have died of rabies in Florida. The donor also donated organs to three more patients.
After receiving organs from an infected donor in Arkansas in 2004, three transplant patients passed away from rabies.
This Information has been sourced from NBC News.
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