A Michigan woman contracted COVID-19 and died last fall after receiving a double lung transplant from a donor who was found to have the virus, according to a study.
The incident may be the first proven case in the US in which the coronavirus was transmitted through an organ transplant, say researchers in a report published by the American Journal of Transplantation.
“We would not have used our lungs at all if we had had a positive COVID test,” said Dr. Daniel Kaul, director of the Infectious Diseases Transplant Service at the University of Michigan Medical School and one of the study’s co-authors, Kaiser Health News reported.
All the screenings we do normally and we are able to do them, we did them “, added Kaul.
The donor was a woman from the Upper Midwest who died after suffering a severe brain injury in a car accident.
The recipient had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and underwent surgery at Ann Arbor University Hospital.
Nose and throat samples collected from the donor and the recipient had negative results for COVID-19.
However, three days after the operation, the woman developed high fever, low blood pressure, shortness of breath and a lung infection, according to the researchers.
Doctors decided to test COVID-19 after the woman went into septic shock. Fluids taken from the lungs were also tested and the results were positive.
“History obtained from [the donor’s] the family did not reveal any history of travel or any recent fever, cough, headache or diarrhea, ”says the study.
“It is not known whether the donor has had recent exposure to persons known or suspected of being infected with SARS-CoV-2.”
Four days after the operation, a surgeon who had treated the donor’s lungs also gave a positive error test, but later recovered.
Meanwhile, the transplant recipient deteriorated rapidly. He died 61 days after the operation.
Kaul concluded that the Michigan case demonstrates that there should be more extensive organ harvesting before the transplant operation, especially in regions where there are multiple cases of COVID-19.