Why was this guy even used as an organ donor if his symptoms upon death were consistent with rabies?
He should have been cremated so there was nothing with rabies to pass to anything.
Doctors reviewed records about the kidney donor and learned that the Idaho man’s family had disclosed the skunk scratch to doctors when his organs were being donated, the report said.
So the guy had symptoms of rabies, and the family informed doctors that he’d been in contact with wildlife recently
The report said that organ donations are not routinely tested for rabies “because of its rarity in humans in the United States and the complexity of diagnostic testing.”
But they decided it was too unlikely to test for it anyway.
Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend…
That was fast! From my understanding, I though rabies was a slow-progressing illness that could take years to manifest symptoms. 5 weeks after a scratch is wild!
rabies can be months, or years depending on where you were bitten on the body.
when you are transplanting organs, the recipients need to be on immunosuppresants too, so the infection wouldve become quickly deadly very soon. you need to be on anti-rejection meds for a long time too.
Rabies is relatively quick, five weeks is about average. You may be thinking of prion diseases which can take years if not decades to even start showing symptoms.
As a kid I was always told that rabies kills within 11 days so less than 2 weeks.
Yeah, that I was told too. But less than two weeks from where the symptoms appear, not from the wound/bite.
If the symptoms start to show it’s too late, the brain is already inflamed.
Symptoms means you got at most 2 days since you can’t drink water. Usually hours?
