MI Man Died Of Rabies After Kidney Transplant: New Details Emerge

Health officials have released more information about a Michigan resident who died of rabies after receiving an organ transplant.

News reports identified the patient as 76-year-old Barney Kurowicki, of Tecumseh. He had been enduring dialysis treatment for two years before receiving a new kidney at an Ohio hospital in December 2024.

He died a month later from rabies that officials said he got from the kidney transplant, according to health officials.

The organ donor was a 59-year-old James Martin, of Idaho. Officials initially believed he died from heart failure but now suspect it was rabies, Scripps News reported.

Officials believe Martin contracted rabies after he was scratched by an aggressive skunk while defending his kitten in December 2024, according to the report.

Martin's wife followed through on James' wish to donate his organs and noted that he was recently scratched by a skunk, according to the report.

Officials did test for HIV and hepatitis as the transplant process continued, but not rabies because transmission through organ donation is rare.

Fewer than 10 people in the U.S. die from rabies each year, and there were only three documented cases of rabies transmission through organ donation between 1978 and 2024, according to the CDC.

While rare, it has happened before. In 2013, a patient in Maryland died from rabies more than a year after receiving a kidney transplant, according to the CDC.

The donor in that case had died in 2011, and because rabies was not suspected as a cause, testing for the virus was not performed. Three other people who received donated organs from the same recipient were identified and received anti-rabies shots, the CDC said.

After determining Kurowicki contracted rabies from the organ donation, health officials alerted three other patients who had received tissue from James' cornea. None of those patients have experienced any symptoms, though one of the tissue samples did test positive for rabies, according to the Scripps News report.

Officials were able to prevent a fourth graft from taking place.

The Health Resources and Services Administration is now recommending officials change the screening questions to help determine whether a donor has had contact with rabies.