A man has died after contracting rabies from a transplanted kidney, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Thursday. This marks the 10th known case of an organ or tissue transplant recipient who contracted the virus from a donor in the U.S. since 1978.
In this case, in December 2024 the man, a resident of Michigan, received a left kidney from an Idaho-based donor at a hospital in Ohio. The recipient began to feel ill five weeks later. His initial symptoms included weakness, confusion and incontinence. After a week, he was hospitalized with a fever, difficulty swallowing, problems with his nervous system and, crucially, an irrational fear of water—a key symptom of rabies in humans. He died 51 days after the transplant, according to the CDC.
Officials determined that the donor had been infected with the virus by a skunk, which had scratched him and a kitten he had been holding weeks before he was found dead of a presumed cardiac arrest. But later testing revealed that he, too, had died of rabies. The skunk appears to have gotten rabies from a bat.
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The donor’s other organs and tissues are not considered a risk to the public, the CDC said: ocular grafts from his corneas either were removed from recipients who went on to show no symptoms or were not implanted. His other organs were not implanted. Health officials identified a further 349 health care workers and 18 community contacts of both the donor and the kidney recipient who were identified as possibly being exposed, and the officials recommended that 13 percent of those people receive precautionary treatment.
Transplant donors are scanned for many diseases but not typically for rabies. The CDC cautioned that the risk of rabies from transplants is low, adding that if donor families or health care workers suspect possible rabies, then they should contact public health officials.
