Rabies and Organ Donors

Two things I wish I hadn't learned this week:

• You can get rabies from an organ transplant.
• It can take up to a year to develop symptoms of rabies after being bitten by a rabid bat.

Sound implausible? It happened:

The New York Times > Science > 3 Fatal Cases of Rabies Are Linked to Ill Donor: In what federal officials said was the first case of its kind, three people who received organ transplants in May from a single donor in Texas died from rabies in June. The donor was not suspected of having rabies at his death, which doctors attributed to a stroke, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. It was not until this week, after a pathologist in Dallas who was puzzled about the deaths asked the federal agency for help, that the connection was made, Dr. Artun Srinivasan, a C.D.C. physician said in a telephone interview. ...A year can pass from when a person is bitten by a rabid animal or exposed to a bat before rabies develops. ...health officials at the disease control centers and in four states, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, are seeking to identify quickly anyone who had contact with the four patients to determine who needs immunizations. People exposed to patients' saliva are those most likely to need treatment. ...Although rabies has never been transmitted from an organ donor, eight people - one in the United States and seven elsewhere - have developed rabies after having corneal transplants.