{"id":181395,"date":"2025-12-13T05:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T05:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/181395\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T05:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T05:26:07","slug":"us-man-dies-after-rabies-infected-kidney-traced-to-organ-donors-skunk-scratch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/181395\/","title":{"rendered":"US man dies after rabies-infected kidney traced to organ donor\u2019s skunk scratch"},"content":{"rendered":"

A CDC spokesperson said health authorities had not been aware that the donor was infected with the disease until after the man\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce doctors believed the recipient could have rabies, public health officials learned the organ donor was exposed to a wild animal in Idaho five weeks before death.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe donor did not seek medical care at that time, later died suddenly without traditional rabies symptoms, and public health officials were not notified.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December 2024, the donor was taken off life support after initially suffering a \u201cpresumed cardiac arrest\u201d.<\/p>\n

He is believed to have contracted the disease five weeks beforehand during an interaction with a skunk at a property in Idaho.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring an encounter that rendered the skunk unconscious, the donor sustained a shin scratch that bled, but he did not think he had been bitten. According to the family, the donor attributed the skunk\u2019s behaviour to predatory aggression toward the kitten,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n

Rabies screenings are not routinely included in donor organ screenings, which typically test for less rare infections like HIV, hepatitis and syphilis, People reported.<\/p>\n

The director of immunocompromised host infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children\u2019s Hospital told the New York Times the incident \u201cis an exceptionally rare event\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A CDC spokesperson said health authorities had not been aware that the donor was infected with the disease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[74,1558,6179,7126,115256,50109,71,134,87304,2255,5158,2145,111,139,69,115254,39009,115253,49478,95324,115255,61,2195,3040,102],"class_list":["post-181395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-after","tag-been","tag-died","tag-dies","tag-donor","tag-donors","tag-from","tag-health","tag-infected","tag-kidney","tag-man","tag-michigan","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-organ","tag-rabies","tag-rabiesinfected","tag-receiving","tag-scratch","tag-skunk","tag-to","tag-traced","tag-us","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}