A 15-year-old boy, who had been on the waiting list for a new heart since September 2020, is in recovery after he received the heart of a COVID-19-infected donor in May, Rome’s Bambino Gesù Hospital said in a statement.
The boy had been suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition that makes it difficult for the heart to pump blood.
The condition is rare in children, with a frequency of around one case per 190,000 people.
The patient had already received a mechanical heart in order to keep him alive while waiting for a compatible heart.
With his condition worsening, the hospital requested and received authorisation from the Italian National Transplant Centre (CNT) and the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) to carry out the transplant using the heart of a donor infected with COVID-19.
It comes after a similar transplant was carried out in late-April, involving an adult donor who had been infected with COVID-19 and an uninfected 64-year-old man at Sant’Orsola Hospital in Bologna.
Neither recipient became infected with COVID-19 after the transplants, hospital sources said.
With ANSA
