Transplant organs infect patients with HIV and hep C

Nov 13 2007

The cases of four transplant recipients in the U.S. who contracted HIV from a single high-risk organ donor is being investigated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The four critically ill patients received their transplants in January this year, at three local hospitals in Chicago from one organ donor.

Though the donor had both hepatitis C and HIV, tests for those and other conditions apparently came back negative.

Experts suggest the donor may have contracted the two diseases shortly before he died.

Though little information has been released regarding the organ donor it is suspected he was a gay man, who had engaged in high-risk behavior.

Medical ethicists say as every patient in need of an organ has a significant medical condition that in most circumstances restricts life expectancy, the question is what degree of risk is appropriate in such situations.

Even though the doctors may have known the organs were from a high-risk donor they would based their decision on the negative results of the blood tests and the fact that the recipients were critically ill and would not have survived without a transplant, would also have been a major factor.

The four recipients received the organ transplants at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Rush University Medical Center and the University of Chicago Medical Center and learned of their diseases just two weeks ago; the Illinois Department of Public Health are also investigating the case.

Dr. Michael Millis, the chief of the transplantation program at the University of Chicago Hospitals, says even though the organ supply is very safe, it is clearly not 100 percent safe and with the current technology used, it will never be 100 percent safe.

The United Network for Organ Sharing says this is the first case of HIV being transmitted from a donor since guidelines were adopted in 1994 as a result three deaths in 1985 of organ recipients from AIDS.

Since then, more than 400,000 organ transplants in the U.S. have been performed without any reports of AIDS transmission.