Michigan Man Dies from Rabies Post Kidney Transplant
A man in Michigan has tragically passed away from rabies just under two months after receiving a kidney transplant from a donor who had engaged in a skunk confrontation, as reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The unidentified man underwent the kidney transplant at a hospital in Ohio in December 2024, coming from a donor in Idaho. He succumbed to the illness in late January 2025, a mere 51 days after the procedure, according to CDC findings released Thursday.
Following the surgery, about five weeks later, he began to show concerning symptoms such as “tremors, weakness in his legs, confusion, and urinary incontinence,” based on reports from federal authorities.
By the sixth week, his condition worsened, leading to hospitalization due to “fever, phobia, dysphagia, and autonomic instability.” Tragically, he had to be placed on a ventilator just two days after his admission.
Doctors, recognizing the symptomatology, suspected rabies and reached out to both the Ohio Department of Health and the CDC on the fourth day of his hospitalization.
He was declared dead on the seventh day of his hospital stay, and a subsequent examination confirmed rabies infection. However, it puzzled officials that the patient had not been in contact with any potential rabid animals.
Further investigation revealed that the Idaho donor had indeed been scratched by a skunk, as uncovered in a second round of the Donor Risk Assessment Interview (DRAI).
Upon interviewing the donor’s family, it was disclosed that in October 2024, the donor had scraped his shin while wrestling with a skunk defending its territory, which he claimed was simply acting on its predatory instincts towards his kitten. This incident, though seemingly minor at the time, had significant implications.
To trace the source of the infection, authorities conducted weeks of laboratory follow-ups including kidney biopsies, which showed a strain of rabies consistent with that found in silver-haired bats, indicating that the virus was potentially transmitted via the donor’s kidney.
The CDC noted that while rabies is usually transmitted through bites or scratches from mammals, it can also spread through organ and tissue transplants.
Authorities proposed a possible three-step infection chain: a rabid silver-haired bat infected a skunk, which in turn infected the donor, ultimately leading to the kidney recipient’s infection.
Interestingly, the CDC highlighted that kidney transplant recipients weren’t the only ones at risk from donors in Idaho. Three individuals who received corneal tissue transplants were also noted, and as a precaution, their grafts were removed while they received post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP)—a timely emergency treatment to prevent a fatal outcome from rabies.
Fortunately, no corneal transplant recipients reported any rabies-like symptoms.
On a broader scale, an ongoing investigation identified 370 individuals who may have been at risk due to the transplants from the Idaho donors or to Michigan recipients, with 357 completing risk assessments. Among them, 46 were prescribed PEP.
The CDC emphasized in its report that while rabies transmission via transplants is rare, this incident marks only the fourth reported case in the United States since 1978.
