A woman in Michigan contracted Covid-19 and died after receiving a tainted double-lung transplant from a donor. To make matters even worse the donor showed no signs of illness and initially tested negative.

The recipient of the transplant had been suffering with chronic obstructive lung disease, known as COPD, with the donor having died from severe brain injury following a car accident.

A surgeon who handled the donor lungs was also infected with the virus and fell ill but later recovered.

Dr. Daniel Kaul, director of Michigan Medicine’s transplant infectious disease service said: “We would absolutely not have used the lungs if we’d had a positive Covid test. All the screening that we normally do and are able to do, we did.”

The tragic story marks the first confirmed case of Covid transmission in a transplant patient in the US.