Rare Infection Passed Through Organ Donation

In what is being called a medical first, hospital officials in Mississippi say a very rare but dangerous infection was passed from an organ donor to at least two recipients who suffered critical illnesses.

The infection was caused by the organism Balamuthia mandrillaris and passed on to four people in three states who received donated organs from the same person who died after carrying the organism, according to an Associated Press report. Two of those organ-transplant patients developed critical symptoms from the infection and two others have shown no symptoms of problems, officials said.

Officials from the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where the infected organ donor died from neurological problems, said donated organs are tested for hepatitis, HIV, and other infectious diseases, but less common infections may slip through the cracks.

“We test for the known harmful diseases, but there’s not a test for every single pathogen out there,” Dr. Kenneth Kokko, medical director of kidney transplants at UMMC, told the AP.

Rare Parasite Linked to Problems

Balamuthia mandrillaris is a microscopic parasite found in soil that causes encephalitis in humans, horses, dogs, sheep and nonhuman primates. While researchers suspect most people get infected by breathing it in, the infection can also pass into the blood through a cut or break in the skin.

The infection is especially dangerous to organ transplant patients, whose immune systems are purposely weakened so their bodies don’t reject their new organs. Still, Balamuthia mandrillaris infections are still very rare in people, with only about 150 cases reported worldwide since the disease was first identified in 1990, the AP reports.

The infection can be hard to diagnose because few laboratories test for it. Also, many doctors do not know about it and some cases are not identified until autopsy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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