How do you get rabies from an organ transplant???

[Cheyworship]

Hello all. As you know my main fear with health anxiety is rabies. Apparently a man in Michigan has died due to a rabies infection he caught via organ transplant. This has obviously started my fear up again, I’m not getting any organ transplants anytime soon but just the fact that’s a possibility blows my mind. I mean, one person already had to be infected with rabies, die somehow, be a donor and have their organs put into another. I also only thought it could be passed via saliva? This disease is an anomaly, it always makes my anxiety act up.

 

[Sweet T]

This is so strange. And rare. I had no idea this happened.

 

[Cuchculan]

OK. So the person who had donated the organ was the one who originally had rabies. With the transplant it was simply passed on. So the disease is already present. Is in the organ that is being put in the new patient. if you have any disease that can be spread, it would be spread via a transplant too. Because what you are getting in the transplant is already infected. It is very rare. But like most things in life, it can happen.

 

[noideaforaname]

In the USA we can have lawyer paperwork like not being connected to machines to keep our bodies alive and if we die we can't be revived. I forget what they are called but i have the not being connected to machines one. I did it on an online site and i was sent paperwork and a wallet card, my brother is the executer or whatever for this.

Talk to a medical doctor 1st and see if getting a "donated" organ can be checked if rabies "appears" or something like that. Then get paperwork from a lawyer to test and/or stop a donated piece of body being put in your body.

Advantages of living in a Free-ish Country, we can do anything we want but there are a thousand hands trying to take our "earned" money.... hahaha....

 

[shay1988]

I thought they had to check every patient to Make sure they didn't have any disease or sickness before transplantation could even happen! So this must of been a crazy 1 in a million incident. That's crazy. But I wouldn't worry about it. That's very very very rare.

 

[peronny676]

Rabies from an organ transplant is super rare-it only happens if the donor had undiagnosed rabies before they passed away. Doctors screen donors really carefully, but sometimes a disease can slip through if it’s in the very early stages. Normally, rabies spreads through bites or saliva, not organs. So while it’s scary, the chances of it happening are extremely low.