2 Kidney Transplant Recipients in Beijing Died of Rabies, Transmitted via Donor

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Zhou H et al, Probable Rabies Virus Transmission through Organ Transplantation, China, 2015. Emerging Infectious Diseases, August 2016
wwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/22/8/15-1993_article

Quote:

(a) "During July 2015, physicians at a hospital in Beijing, China, diagnosed rabies 狂犬病 in 2 patients who had each received a kidney from a common organ donor who had died from acute progressive encephalitis of unknown cause. The patients had rabies incubation periods of 42 and 48 days. Altered mental status developed in both patients and progressively worsened to deep coma within 80 days after transplantation; both patients died. Two other transplant recipients received corneas but remained well after receiving timely rabies prophylaxis.

(b) "The donor was a 6-year-old boy who lived in Guangxi Province, an area of China that had the highest number of cumulative reported rabies cases during 2004–2014. During that period, ≈10 rabies cases were reported almost every year in the northeastern part of Guangxi, where the boy resided. On May 13, 2015, the boy had a fever (temperature not recorded) and refused to eat, drink, or sleep (Figure). On May 15th, the boy was sent to a county hospital because the fever and symptoms had not resolved and he showed additional symptoms of extreme irritability, screaming, and slurred speech. The boy refused a physical examination, including measurement of his body temperature. The doctor administered infusion therapy with vitamins B and C, aspirin/glycine , and diazepam, but symptoms persisted.

"On May 16, the boy showed signs of dysphagia and hypersalivation and was moved to another county-level hospital. Doctors presumptively treated the boy with intravenous ribavirin for a possible viral infection, but the boy’s condition continued to deteriorate. Later that day, he was admitted to a prefecture-level hospital with a diagnosis of possible viral encephalitis

Note:
(a) In retrospect, the symptoms of the boy were typical of rabies. There is no need to read the rest of this scientific report.
(b) The medical journal "Emerging Infectious Diseases" is published by United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
(c) The only news report -- in both English and Chinese -- about the scientific report is

Jonathan Kaiman, Two in China Receive Kidney Transplants, Contract Rabies and Die. Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2016
www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg ... 721-snap-story.html

, which The Epoch Times translated into Chinese.