Rabies tileA Maryland man died from a transplanted, rabies-infected kidney that came from a donor who wasn’t known to have the disease, a rare death that has prompted authorities to treat three other transplant patients, federal health officials said today.
The man who died had received the kidney more than a year ago. The recipients of the donor’s other kidney, heart and liver are getting anti-rabies shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a news release today. Those patients live in Florida, Georgia and Illinois.
The donor died in Florida in 2011 after moving there from North Carolina.
The CDC said it’s working with public health officials and medical facilities in all five states to identify people who were in close contact with the donor or the four organ recipients. Those people might also need treatment, the agency said.
The Maryland patient’s death more than a week ago prompted an investigation by state health officials that led to the announcement Tuesday of the state’s first human death from rabies since 1976. Such deaths are rare, with typically just one to three cases diagnosed per year in the U.S., the CDC said.