A US woman has reportedly died after she received coronavirus infected lungs.
The American Journal of Transplantation made this known in its latest study report sighted by African Entertainment.
According to the report, the woman contracted coronavirus and passed away last fall after receiving a double-lung transplant.
The organs, she received, the report said, were infected with the coronavirus.
Per the report, the donor of the organs, initially tested negative and showed no signs of being sick.
The report says her death seems to be the first confirmed U.S. case of donor-to-recipient transmission of coronavirus.
Due to her death, the report revealed that US doctors are now calling for more thorough testing to be performed ahead of transplants.
According to the report, the doctors said “We would absolutely not have used the lungs if we’d had a positive Covid test,” Dr. Daniel Kaul, director of Michigan Medicine’s transplant infectious disease service and a co-author of the study, told Kaiser Health News. “All the screening that we normally do and are able to do, we did.”
The report indicated that the woman who received the transplant was a chronic obstructive lung disease patient at University Hospital in Ann Arbor. It further revealed that she tested negative for coronavirus several hours before the transplant procedure.
However, about three days after the surgery, the report indicated that the patient developed worsening fever, low blood pressure and respiratory problems.
Doctors decided to test samples collected from the patient’s nose and throat as well as her lower respiratory system for COVID-19 after she developed septic shock and heart function problems. The nose and throat sample came back negative but the lower respiratory sample tested positive, the report said.
It indicated that doctors then decided to test a sample they had saved from the donor’s lower respiratory tract and that tested positive for Coronavirus.
The patient’s condition continued to worsen for the next several weeks. She experienced multisystem organ failure and developed worsening respiratory distress. She was treated with the antiviral drug remdesivir and received convalescent plasma on two occasions, but her condition continued to decline. She died two months after receiving the double-lung transplant, according to the report.
According to the report, the surgeon who performed the lung transplant tested positive for COVID-19 four days after the transplant procedure but later recovered.
However, 10 other members of the transplant team tested negative for coronavirus.
Genetic screening showed the transplant recipient and surgeon were extremely likely to have been infected by the donor lungs.
African Entertainment understands that about 40,000 transplants were carried out across the United States in 2020.
Writer: Philomena Asamoah
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