Second German death after rabies organ transplants

February 21, 2005

Source: Reuters

FRANKFURT, Feb 21 (Reuters) - A second transplant patient in Germany believed to have contracted rabies after receiving an organ from an infected donor has died, medical authorities said on Monday.

"Despite great efforts, it was impossible to stabilise the recipient of the kidney transplant and prevent a fatality," a clinic in the central town of Hannoversch Muenden said.

The 70-year-old man had initially been brought into hospital about a week ago with suspected meningitis. On Saturday, a woman who received a lung from the same donor died.

Authorities in Germany said last week they suspected three people may have been infected with rabies following transplants from a woman thought to have contracted the illness before her death.

Doctors believe the donor, who died of heart failure in December 2004, may have contracted the virus during a holiday in India. She displayed no symptoms of rabies -- which can have an incubation period of several months -- before her death.

Authorities said a patient in Marburg who received a transplant from the donor remained in a critical condition, while three others being treated Mainz and Heidelberg were doing well.

If the patients were infected, it would be the first time rabies had been transmitted via transplantation in Germany, where some 100,000 organs have been transplanted since 1963, according to the German Organ Transplantation Foundation (DSO).

Rabies is a serious infection of the nervous system and is usually transmitted to humans and animals by a bite from an infected animal. Once clinical rabies develops, it is almost always fatal.

Copyright © 2005 Reuters.

This article posted April 3, 2005.