Patient dies of rabies after infected organ transplant

A Maryland transplant patient has died of rabies after receiving an infected organ from a donor, though the Centers for Disease Control said that transmission of rabies through organ donation is an extremely rare occurrence.

Analysis confirmed that both the donor and the transplant patient died of a raccoon-type rabies infection, the CDC said in a press statement.

"The organ transplant occurred more than a year before the recipient developed symptoms and died of rabies," read a CDC press statement. "This period is much longer than the typical rabies incubation period of one to three months, but is consistent with prior case reports of long incubation periods."

Three other patients who had received organs from the infected donor have been contacted and are now receiving rabies shots.

The donor's kidneys, heart and liver were sent to recipients in Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Maryland after the patient became ill and died in a Florida hospital in 2011. The donor was never tested for rabies, since it was not suspected as the cause of death at the time.