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medpundit |
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Friday, July 02, 2004The lungs, kidneys and liver of an Arkansas man who died in May were donated to four patients in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Three of them died of rabies; the fourth, in Alabama, died of complications during surgery, the CDC said. The donor had shown no symptoms of rabies before his death from a brain hemorrhage, said Dr. Mitchell Cohen, director of the CDC coordinating center for infectious diseases. 'We are learning as we go this has never happened before,' Cohen said. While these are the first known cases of rabies being spread through donated organs, at least eight people have contracted the virus through cornea transplants, the CDC said. Rabies is extremely rare, at least in humans. There are only zero to two cases a year in the United States, thanks to the friendly dog warden and rabies shots for pets. (And the fact that most of us don't live in close proximity to our wild animal friends.) It isn't so suprising that it's taken this long to find out it can be transmitted from organ transplants. posted by Sydney on 7/02/2004 06:43:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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