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Michigan man received kidney transplant from donor who had fought off a skunk and was later found unresponsive

A Michigan man has died of rabies after receiving a kidney from another man who died of the disease when he was scratched by a skunk while defending a kitten, in what officials are describing as an “exceptionally rare event”.

According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Michigan patient received a kidney transplant at an Ohio hospital in December 2024.

Around five weeks later, he began experiencing tremors, lower extremity weakness, confusion and urinary incontinence. He was soon hospitalized and ventilated, then died. Postmortem testing confirmed rabies, the CDC report said, baffling authorities because the recipient’s family had said he had not had any exposure to animals.