A mystery virus blamed for killing three organ transplant recipients in Australia this year has been identified as a hitherto unknown relative of a rodent virus. Ian Lipkin at the Greene Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Columbia University in New York and colleagues identified the agent as a lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), the relatives of which can cause meningitis in humans.
All three patients had received a liver or a kidney from the same donor, who died of a brain haemorrhage at a Melbourne hospital in December 2006. Lipkin says transplant patients are especially vulnerable because their immune systems are suppressed…
