The 57-year-old man who received a kidney from the same donor is also infected with the hard-to-detect lymphocyte choriomeningitis virus or LCMV, the Boston Globe said Tuesday.
The donor was a 49-year-old homeless man who suffered brain damage after cardiac arrest, the newspaper said, adding that the man was considered a high-risk donor because he lived on the streets. However, seriously ill patients are willing to accept organs from high-risk donors because of long waits that could put them on further risk.
LCMV is most often transmitted by rodents and usually unnoticed by healthy people who do not suffer anything more than flu-like symptoms, according to the newspaper. Organs are tested for more easily detectable infections, such as hepatitis and the virus that causes AIDS but there is no viable test for LCMV.
The virus also killed three transplants patients in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 2005. The homeless donor died in mid-March, according to the newspaper.
