A persons precious organ donation came with an unexpected visitor.
Doctors and health officials detailed the unusual mishap in a reportpublishedMonday in the journalEmerging Infectious Diseases.
Fortunately, the tainted transfer was detected in time and both patients were treated successfully.
A female deer tick (xodes scapularis), one of the two tick species that spread ehrlichiosis in the U.S.© KPixMining via Shutterstock
Several species of bacteria cause ehrlichiosis, though most cases are tied toEhrlichia chaffeensis.
The disease is rarely documented, though cases have been increasing over time.
But this most recent case is even rarer than usual.
His recipient was a 24-year-old man with end-stage kidney disease from Wisconsin.
Both mens operations went smoothly.
Doctors stabilized him quickly, and he recovered well enough to be discharged six days after the operation.
The recipient, meanwhile, appeared fine at first.
He was given a new course of antibiotics standard for these infections and eventually recovered as well.
He also felt sick a week before the transplant, though he attributed it to simple food poisoning.
Other tests found evidence of the bacteria in the donor and in the transplanted kidney.
The laboratory evidence, exposure history, and epidemiology of ehrlichiosis strongly support donor-derived transmission ofE.
chaffeensisinitially acquired by the donor through a tick bite in Kansas 3 weeks before donation, the authors wrote.
Transplanted cases of ehrlichiosis are exceedingly rare, but not unheard ofand they can be deadly.
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