A transplant patient in Michigan died after receiving a pair of lungs from someone who was infected with COVID-19, according to the Washington Post.
Last fall, the woman underwent surgery for a double lung transplant. Three days after her surgery, the woman had developed pneumonia and began to show symptoms of coronavirus, including high fever and difficulty breathing.
It was later determined that the woman, who died as a result of the virus three months later, had developed COVID-19 from the lung transplant.
The Post reports that both the recipient of the transplant and the donor had tested negative for the virus within 12 to 48 hours after surgery. The donor’s lungs showed no signs of infection and the donor’s family said the woman had no history of travel or symptoms.
The cases were confirmed when fluid samples from the lungs taken before and after surgery were tested.
Daniel Kaul, a women’s doctor and director of Michigan Medicine’s Infectious Diseases Service, said incidents like this can happen, but they are very rare.
“This is at least the first proven case of COVID-19 transmission through organ transplantation in the United States,” Kaul told the Washington Post.
He published his findings not to scare people from doing organ transplants, but to raise awareness about the need for strict testing, he said.
“The reason we chose to report this is because we believe it’s very important that people in the transplant community are aware of this transmission so that we can work to have a system where it’s lower. [respiratory] the specimen of the treatment is checked in all lung donors “.