Thread by @DrEricDing

COVID hidden in lung 🫁 transplant—transplant recipient tragically dies after receiving donor lungs, unbeknownst infected with #COVID19. The surgeon also contracted same #SARSCoV2—both infected from the dead donor’s lung, verified from genetic sequencing.🧵nbcnews.com/health/health-…

2) “Doctors say a woman in Michigan contracted Covid-19 and died last fall two months after receiving a tainted double-lung transplant from a donor who turned out to harbor the virus that causes the disease — despite showing no signs of illness and initially testing negative.”

3) “Officials at the University of Michigan Medical School suggested it may be the first proven case of #COVID19 in U.S. in which virus was transmitted via an organ transplant. A surgeon who handled the donor lungs was also infected with the virus & fell ill but later recovered.”

4) “We would absolutely not have used the lungs if we’d had a positive Covid test,” said Kaul, who co-authored a report about the case in the American Journal of Transplantation.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

5) The virus was transmitted when lungs from a woman from the Upper Midwest, who died after suffering a severe brain injury in a car accident, were transplanted into a woman with chronic obstructive lung disease at University Hospital in Ann Arbor.

6) “The nose and throat samples routinely collected from both organ donors and recipients tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.”

7) “One thoracic surgeon present during the transplantation procedure developed COVID‐19. Sequence analysis from donor BAL fluid (obtained at procurement), recipient, and the infected thoracic surgeon proved donor origin of recipient and health care worker infection.”

8) Authors recommend: Transplant centers and organ procurement organizations should perform #SARSCoV2 testing of lower respiratory tract specimens from potential lung donors, and consider **enhanced PPE** for health care workers involved in lung procurement & transplantation.