A rare and tragic case of transplant-related rabies has raised new questions for the organ donation process in the United States.
Health officials confirmed that a man from Michigan died in February 2025 after receiving a kidney transplant in Ohio in December 2024. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week that the organ donor had unknowingly been infected with rabies weeks before his death, possibly after saving a kitten from an aggressive skunk.
According to the CDC, the organ donor was from Idaho and had been scratched on the shin while rescuing a kitten from what his family described as a “predatory” skunk. The incident happened in late October 2024, about six weeks before his organs were donated. The skunk had reportedly attacked the kitten on the donor’s rural property. While the donor’s injury bled, he believed it was just a scratch and didn’t think he had been bitten.
Over the following weeks, the donor began showing symptoms such as trouble swallowing, difficulty walking, a stiff neck, and hallucinations. He was later found unresponsive at home after what was believed to be a heart attack. He was taken to the hospital, where doctors tried to revive him. He was declared brain-dead and eventually taken off life support.
His family completed a risk assessment form that mentioned the skunk incident, but doctors didn’t suspect rabies. Health officials say rabies is not part of the routine screening process for organ donors in the U.S. due to how rare the disease is and how complicated the testing can be.
Michigan man dies of rabies he contracted from transplant donor infected while saving kitten from skunk: CDC https://t.co/pAtmOiXg6r pic.twitter.com/fsQHqk9lGd
— New York Post (@nypost) December 9, 2025
The man who received the donor’s kidney began experiencing serious symptoms in early 2025, including fever, tremors, difficulty swallowing, and a fear of water—a classic sign of rabies. He died 51 days after his transplant.
The CDC identified the rabies strain as the silver-haired bat variant. They believe the skunk was likely infected by a bat and then transmitted the virus to the donor through the scratch.
In addition to the kidney transplant, three other individuals received corneal tissue from the same donor. After the rabies diagnosis, those patients underwent immediate treatment and had their grafts removed. None of them have shown symptoms so far, according to the CDC.
Officials also reached out to 370 people who may have come in contact with the infected donor during his hospital stay. Of those, 46 were recommended to receive rabies prevention treatment.
CDC is reporting the death of an organ recipient who received a kidney from a donor with rabies. It reads like a bizarre torts exam question, where a man fights a skunk to save a kitten, dies with rabies, and then his organs kill a recipient months later. https://t.co/syt9oqxrV9
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 10, 2025
This is the fourth known case in U.S. history where rabies has been transmitted through an organ transplant. The CDC says while this case is tragic, the risk of getting rabies through a transplant is extremely low. About 1.4 million people in the U.S. receive treatment each year for possible rabies exposure, but deaths are rare thanks to effective treatments.
Health experts are now advising transplant teams to contact public health officials when a potential organ donor has had recent exposure to animals known to carry rabies, especially if the donor showed unusual neurological symptoms. However, there is currently no standard rule for how hospitals should respond to reports of animal bites or scratches in donors.
The CDC says they will continue to monitor the case and work with transplant teams to improve safety measures.
