Woman died after catching Covid from transplanted lungs

Coronavirus infection has been found in many organs

A woman contracted Covid-19 from transplanted lungs and later died, doctors have confirmed.

Tests of the donor and her lungs had come back negative for the coronavirus, but doctors now believe nasal swabs had failed to spot that it was being harboured deeper inside the organs or airway.

The unnamed recipient in Michigan is thought to be the first confirmed US case of an organ recipient catching the virus from a donor, the New York Times reported.

Dr Daniel Kaul, an infectious disease specialist at Michigan Medicine who researched the case, said the patient had appeared to make good progress after surgery, before her condition then dipped.

“All of a sudden, she had fever, low blood pressure, pneumonia,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what was going on.”

After testing showed the recipient had tested positive for the coronavirus, the doctors were able to go back and test a remaining sample of the donor’s lungs. That results confirmed the donor had been infected and when the virus samples were sequenced, it showed the patient had contracted the virus from the donor’s lungs. Moreover a surgeon carrying out the transplant also caught the virus.

The recipient who was suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease before the transplant at University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich, died after 61 days.

The death has prompted calls for more rigorous coronavirus tests before donations are carried out, but doctors stressed the case appeared incredibly rare.

Dr Kaul and his colleagues suggested that transplant centres and organ matching groups should consider coronavirus testing from further down the airway. Medics involved in lung procurement and transplantation should also think about better protective equipment, they said.

Coronavirus has been found in other organs, including the kidneys, liver, heart, and blood, but in this case the lungs were the only transplant.

“We want the transplant community to be aware that this can happen, and also that there may be things we can do to improve our success in screening patients for Covid,” said the surgeon, Dr Jules Lin, who also contributed to the investigation.