A Michigan woman contracted COVID-19 and died last fall after receiving a double-lung transplant from a donor who turned out to have the virus, according to a study.
The incident may be the first proven case in the United States in which the coronavirus was transmitted through an organ transplant, researchers say in a report published in the American Journal of Transplantation.
“We wouldn’t 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 School of Medicine and one of the study’s co-authors, he told Kaiser Health News.
All the projection that we normally do and we are able to do, we did it “, added Kaul.
The donor was a woman from the Upper Midwest who died after suffering a serious brain injury in a car accident.
The recipient had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and was operated on at Ann Arbor University Hospital.
Nose and throat samples collected from the donor and recipient had tested negative for COVID-19.
However, three days after surgery, the woman developed high fever, low blood pressure, intense breathing and a lung infection, according to the researchers.
Doctors decided to test for COVID-19 after the woman suffered a septic shock. Fluids extracted from the lungs were also tested and the results were positive.
“History obtained from [the donor’s] the family did not reveal a history of travel or any recent fever, cough, headache or diarrhea, ”the study says.
“It is unknown whether the donor had recent exposures to people known or suspected of being infected with SARS-CoV-2.”
Four days after the operation, a surgeon who had manipulated the donor’s lungs also tested positive for the error, but then recovered.
Meanwhile, the transplant recipient deteriorated rapidly. He died 61 days after surgery.
Kaul concluded that the Michigan case demonstrates the need for more extensive organ sampling prior to transplant surgery, especially in regions where there are more cases of COVID-19.