Man Dies of Rabies After Kidney Transplant From Donor Who Saved Kitten From Skunk
An Anonymous Coward writes:
A Michigan man has died of rabies after receiving a kidney from another man who died of the disease when he was scratched by a skunk while defending a kitten, in what officials are describing as an "exceptionally rare event".
According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Michigan patient received a kidney transplant at an Ohio hospital in December 2024.
Around five weeks later, he began experiencing tremors, lower extremity weakness, confusion and urinary incontinence. He was soon hospitalized and ventilated, then died. Postmortem testing confirmed rabies, the CDC report said, baffling authorities because the recipient's family had said he had not had any exposure to animals.
Doctors then reviewed records about the kidney donor, a man in Idaho, and discovered that in the Donor Risk Assessment Interview (DRAI) questionnaire he said he had been scratched by a skunk.
When asked, the family explained that a couple of months before, in October, while he was holding a kitten in a shed on his country property, a skunk approached, showing "predatory aggression toward the kitten".
The man fought off the animal in an encounter that the report says "rendered the skunk unconscious", but not before the man received a "shin scratch that bled", although he did not think he had been bitten.
Five weeks later, a family member said, he became confused, had difficulty swallowing and walking, experienced hallucinations and had a stiff neck. Two days later, he was found unresponsive at home after a presumed cardiac arrest. Although he was resuscitated and hospitalized, he never regained consciousness, and after several days was "declared brain dead and removed from life support".
The report states that several of his organs, including his left kidney, were donated.
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