Rabies: hundreds checked after transplant death

health authorities in five states hundreds of people to assess the potential risk of rabies from an infected donor

public health agencies in five states evaluate the risk of rabies for hundreds of people who have had close contact with an organ donor infected four transplant recipients, one of whom died, said officials.

About 200 health workers, family members and others who were evaluated for possible exposure in Maryland, where the man who received a kidney infection died, state veterinarian Katherine Feldman said. She said that fewer than two dozen have been invited to be vaccinated against rabies as a precaution.

In Florida, 90 people were identified as potentially exposed, and three were vaccinated against rabies from Friday, spokesman for the state Department of Health Ashley Carr.

Illinois Department of Public Health, spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said the only potential exposures were people who worked with the patient or the transplanted organ. She said that the transplant recipient treated against rabies.

health officials in Georgia and North Carolina are also involved in epidemiological research triggered by the death of the man from Maryland rage at the end of February, nearly 18 months after obtaining a donor kidney in Pensacola, Florida. However, state authorities have not responded to requests from The Associated Press on the number of people who value.

Doctors in Florida

not prove the age of 20 donors, rabies before his death in September 2011. Your kidneys heart, liver and the other went to beneficiaries in Florida, Georgia and Illinois. Began to receive the vaccine this month, and nobody had symptoms of rabies. An expert from rabies, regardless of the cause, Dr. Rodney Willoughby of Milwaukee, said they have a greater chance of survival because they showed no symptoms.

health officials that the virus can be transmitted through the saliva of an infected person and mucous membranes, but man transmission is rare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta say there has been one documented case of transmission through the bite in the United States. Feldman believes that research topics of potential exposure in Maryland ends. She said that workers take medical precautions, and "not sharing saliva with that many people in our day to day on events."

Melissa

Dankel CDC spokesman said investigators are still trying to understand how the donor graft was infected with the raccoon rabies has been found in brain tissue and the man Maryland. She said that the donor was an outdoorsman who may have been bitten by a wild animal in his native North Carolina before moving to Florida and begin training as a mechanic in the Air Force aviation 17 weeks before his death.

• visited a clinic in Pensacola Naval Air Station in August 2011 with abdominal pain and vomiting and was taken to a civilian hospital four days later, said the spokesman for the Department of Defense, Cynthia Smith. He then developed encephalitis, a brain inflammation that can have a number of causes, including rabies, but has not been tested for the disease, CDC officials say.

Smith said the pilot died of severe gastroenteritis - inflammation of the stomach and small intestine - complicated by electrolyte disturbances, dehydration and seizures. The Florida Department of Health, said he died of encephalitis of unknown origin.

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