Transplant Recipients Linked to Spread of SARS

Organ transplant recipients not only are at increased risk of contracting severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) but could become "superspreaders" of the virus, according to Dr. Deepali Kumar of Toronto's University Health Network.

Kumar, author of a report in the American Journal of Transplantation on a liver transplant recipient who was among those who died of SARS during this past winter's outbreak in Toronto (see earlier Transplant Week story), told the National Post newspaper that a lung-transplant recipient also contracted SARS and died.

Because they are immunosuppressed, transplant recipients are more susceptible to SARS just as they are to a variety of other illnesses.

Before their own deaths, the two transplant recipients with SARS infected numerous other people including family members and health care workers, and at least one of those also died, Kumar said.

"If they are infected (with SARS), they seem to have more severe disease, harder to control disease," said Kumar. "Because they are shedding a lot more virus, they can infect a lot more people."

During the SARS outbreak, Toronto hospitals developed a new screening system aimed at preventing transplant recipients from getting the virus from an infected organ.

When a second outbreak of SARS occurred in Toronto in the spring, these new screening restrictions resulted in the loss of 10 available donors who would have provided up to 30 donor organs, according to Dr. Cameron Guest of the Trillium Gift of Life Network.

"If there was another outbreak of SARS ... it would likely have a major impact on organ donation in that region," Guest said.

Other Sources: National Post