A Michigan resident who received a transplant in December died after being infected with the rage of the new body, the State Health Department said Wednesday.
“A public health investigation determined that they contracted rabies through the transplanted organ,” said Lynn Sutfin, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, in a statement.
The patient received the transplant in a hospital in Ohio in December, then died in January, the department said. The statement did not include information about the identity of the receiver or the type of organ that was transplanted. The donor was not a resident of Michigan or Ohio, he said.
Sutfin said that the health departments of Michigan and Ohio “worked closely” together “and with the centers for the control and prevention of diseases on research on the death of the patient. The laboratory of the rage of the CDC confirmed the diagnosis.
“Health officials worked together to ensure that people, including medical care providers, who were in contact with Michigan’s individual were evaluated for possible exposure to rage,” the statement added. “Preventive attention has been provided after the exhibition, if applicable,”.
The department refused to provide NBC News with additional information. The Ohio Department of Health and the CDC did not respond to comments requests.
Rabies can spread to humans if they come into contact with saliva or blood of infected animals, such as bats, mapaches, skilles or stray dogs. It is not always clear immediately that a person has contracted rage, since the initial symptoms are similar to those of the flu, including fever, headache and nausea. As the disease progresses, patients experience difficulty swallowing, excessive salivation and hallucinations.
If a person does not seek medical attention quickly after being scratched or bitten by a potentially infected animal, rage is fatal. Before 1960, several hundred people died of it every year, but the annual number has been reduced to less than 10 in recent years, according to CDC.
Potential organ donors in the United States are evaluated by viruses, bacteria and other infections; However, anger is not usually among those tests, partly because the test takes too long and because the infection is very rare in people.
A patient who received a kidney transplant in 2013 died similarly after having contracted rage through the organ. It was discovered that the donor died of rage in Florida, but the cause of death was discovered only after an investigation into the death of the recipient. Three other patients also received donor organs.
In 2004, three transplant receptors died of rage after they received organs from a donor infected with Arkansas.
