Man dies of rabies after kidney transplant came from donor with shocking skunk encounter
Lucy Devine
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Photo
A man has died of rabies after having a kidney transplant from a donor who was infected with the disease.
The man, from Michigan, received a kidney from a man who passed away after he was scratched by a skunk while trying to save a kitten.
Around five weeks after the transplant, the man was hospitalized after he began experiencing symptoms of the disease.
According to the NHS, symptoms of rabies usually take 3 to 12 weeks to appear, but it can sometimes take several months or even years, with symptoms including numbness or tingling, hallucinations, and paralysis.
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The man was hospitalized after he began experiencing tremors, weakness, confusion and urinary incontinence.
He later passed away, with a postmortem confirming rabies; however, the man's family were adamant that he had not been exposed to the virus.
Rabies is found throughout the world, but is more common in Asia, Africa and Central and South America.
It's most commonly spread by mammals such as dogs, bats, raccoons and foxes and spreads via a bite or scratch from an infected animal; if an animal licks your eyes, nose or mouth or if an infected animal licks a wound.
Following the postmortem, doctors reviewed the man's case and discovered that the donor had been infected.
Authorities tested the donor's lab samples, which were negative. However, biopsy samples from the kidney found a strain of rabies 'consistent with a silver-haired bat rabies'.
It is believed that a bat infected the skunk, who infected the donor, whose kidney was transplanted to the man.
A CDC report further explains: "Although rabies virus is typically transmitted through mammalian animal bites or scratches, human-to-human transmission has occurred through organ and tissue transplantation.
"From 1978 to 2013, three transplant-transmitted rabies events in the United States affected nine tissue or organ recipients. Rabies is almost always fatal without timely receipt of postexposure prophylaxis (PEP)."
The report revealed that three other individuals also received cornea grafts from the same donor. These have now been removed, and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) administered.
The CDC has said that rabies is usually 'excluded from routine donor pathogen testing because of its rarity in humans in the United States and the complexity of diagnostic testing'.
The report adds: “In this case, hospital staff members who treated the donor were initially unaware of the skunk scratch and attributed his pre-admission signs and symptoms to chronic co-morbidities."