Rabies causes

When thinking of the causes of rabies, people will typically think of bites from rabid animals. These bites are absolutely a cause of rabies, but there are other important reasons for the development of rabies as well. Two of these causes are organ transplantations as well as corneal transplantations.

Recently publicized cases

Transmission by bite

Several recently publicized cases have stemmed from bats, which are known to be a vector for rabies. See the Rabies and bats section below.

In October 2004 a female brown bear killed one human and injured several others near the city of Braşov in Central Romania. The bear was killed by human hunters and diagnosed with rabies. More than one hundred humans were vaccinated afterwards.

Transmission through organ transplants

Rabies is known to have been transmitted between humans by transplant surgery.

A patient with rabies, 1959

Infections by corneal transplant have been reported in Thailand (2 cases), India (2 cases), Iran (2 cases), the United States (1 case), and France (1 case). Details of two further cases of infection resulting from corneal transplants were described in 1996.

In June 2004, three organ recipients died in the United States from rabies transmitted in the transplanted kidneys and liver of an infected donor from Texarkana. There were bats near the donor's home, and the donor had told others that he had been bitten. The donor is now reported to have died of a cerebral hemorrhage, the culmination of an unidentified neurological disorder, although recipients are said to have been told the cause of death had been a car crash. Marijuana and cocaine were found in the donor's urine at the time of his death, according to a report in The New England Journal of Medicine.

"[The surgeons] thought he had suffered a fatal crack-cocaine overdose, which can produce symptoms similar to those of rabies. 'We had an explanation for his condition,' says Dr. Goran Klintmalm, a surgeon who oversees transplantation at Baylor University Medical Center, where the transplants occurred. 'He'd recently smoked crack cocaine. He'd hemorrhaged around the brain. He'd died. That was all we needed to know'. Because of doctor-patient confidentiality rules, doctors involved with this case would not talk about it on the record, but a few did say that if no cocaine was found in the donor's blood, the E.R. doctors might have investigated his symptoms more aggressively instead of assuming he had overdosed. (Because no autopsy was done, doctors have not been able to establish whether the rabies or the drugs actually killed him.)"

In February 2005, three German patients in Mainz and Heidelberg were diagnosed with rabies after receiving various organs and cornea transplants from a female donor. Two of the infected people died. Three other patients who received organs from the woman have not yet shown rabies symptoms. The 26 year old donor had died of heart failure in December 2004 after consuming cocaine and ecstasy. In October 2004, she had visited India, one of the countries worst affected by rabies worldwide. Dozens of medical staff were vaccinated against rabies in the two hospitals as a precautionary measure.

Associated Press reports that "Donated organs are never tested for rabies. The strain detected in the victims' bodies is one commonly found in bats, health officials said." According to CNN "Rabies tests are not routine donor screening tests, Virginia McBride, public health organ donation specialist with the Health Resources and Services Administration, said. The number of tests is limited because doctors have only about six hours from the time a patient is declared brain-dead until the transplantation must begin for the organs to maintain viability."

References