• Posted March 28, 2025

Organ Transplant Patient Dies After Contracting Rabies

A Michigan resident has died after receiving an organ transplant infected with rabies, state health officials said Wednesday.

The patient got the transplant at an Ohio hospital in December and passed away the following month.

The exact type of organ and the patient’s identity have not been shared, according to NBC News, which also reported that the organ donor did not live in Michigan or Ohio.

“A public health investigation determined they contracted rabies through the transplanted organ,” Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said in a statement.

Health officials from Michigan, Ohio and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked together to investigate the death. The CDC's Rabies Laboratory confirmed that the patient did have rabies.

"Health officials worked together to ensure that people, including health care providers, who were in contact with the Michigan individual were assessed for possible exposure to rabies," the HHS statement said. "Post exposure preventive care, if appropriate, has been provided."

Rabies is usually spread through the saliva or blood of infected animals like bats, raccoons or stray dogs. Early symptoms can feel like the flu, such as fever and nausea.  

As the disease worsens, people may have trouble swallowing, drool a lot or even hallucinate. Rabies is almost always deadly if not treated right away.

In the U.S., fewer than 10 people die of rabies each year, according to the CDC. 

Potential organ donors are screened for many diseases, but rabies is not commonly tested for. The test takes too long, and the infection is very rare.

This is not the first time rabies has been spread through organ donation, however. In 2013, a kidney transplant patient died after getting an organ from a donor who later was found to have died of rabies in Florida. 

In 2004, three people also died after receiving organs from a rabies-infected donor in Arkansas.

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on rabies.

SOURCE: NBC News, March 26, 2025