A Michigan man died of rabies after receiving a kidney transplant from another man who was infected by the disease when a skunk scratched him, federal health officials said in a new report.
The Michigan patient died in January after getting a kidney transplant from an Idaho donor in December 2024, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released last week. Postmortem testing confirmed that the patient had contracted rabies, but the CDC said interviews with his family revealed that he did not have any exposure to animals.
"(The) diagnosis of rabies in a kidney transplant recipient with no recognized animal exposure resulted in a multistate public health investigation to ascertain whether the kidney donor had undiagnosed rabies, identify other donor organs and tissues, and identify rabies-exposed persons," according to the CDC.
The investigation identified kidney biopsy samples in which the CDC detected rabies virus RNA consistent with a silver-haired bat rabies virus variant, the report states.
In later interviews with the donor's family members, the CDC said investigators discovered the person had been scratched by a skunk weeks before their death while protecting a kitten and had exhibited rabies-like symptoms before their death. The CDC believes a bat bit the skunk, which then scratched the donor.
