Plasmodium

Record number: 
673
Adverse Occurrence type: 
MPHO Type: 
Time to detection: 
6 weeks
Alerting signals, symptoms, evidence of occurrence: 
Fever; blood smear; tertian fever
Demonstration of imputability or root cause: 
Recipient of one of the kidneys had detectable P. vivax in blood film. Recipient of the liver from the same donor also infected. Blood film positive for P. vivax with  transient seroconversion 5 weeks later. Also CMV viremic. Responded quickly to treatment with chloroquine and primaquine but died of hepatic failure at 6 months, probably due to anti-malarial drug toxicity. Donor immigrated from Cameroon to Germany 18 months before donation; retrospective serology was positive for Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum. The recipient of the other kidney did not develop any evidence of malarial infection. Recipient responded rapidly to mefloquine treatment and did not seroconvert. In another report a recipient developed Plasmodium vivax malaria from an 'unknown donor in India' but it was not shown whether this was from the organ or from blood transfusions given at the same time.