A US woman has died after receiving a lung transplant tainted with COVID-19.
Officials at the University of Michigan Medical School suggest it's the first proven case of COVID-19 being transmitted via an organ transplant - despite the donor showing no symptoms and testing negative.
The virus was transmitted when lungs from a woman who died in a car accident were transplanted into a woman with chronic lung disease. Both women had tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19.
Three days after the transplant the recipient had a fever and her breathing became laboured - she then developed septic shock and heart problems, and when she was tested for SARS-CoV-2 - it was positive. Doctors tested a sample of fluid from deep within the donor lungs that they had kept - and it was positive too.
Despite the best efforts of medical staff the transplant recipient died 61 days after her transplant was completed.
The surgeon who handled the donor lungs also caught COVID-19, but recovered.
Genetic screening revealed that the transplant recipient and the surgeon had been infected by the donor
"We would absolutely not have used the lungs if we'd had a positive COVID test," said Dr. Daniel Kaul, who co-authored a report about the case in the American Journal of Transplantation.
Viral transmissions occur in fewer than 1 percent of transplants, reports NBC.
