Florida tests for virus

MIAMI -- Health officials said Sunday they were testing a transplant patient who received an organ from a Georgia donor for West Nile virus, after the recipient of a heart from the same donor was diagnosed with the disease.\nFlorida Department of Health spokesman Robert Hayes wouldn't say if the other organ recipient was feeling sick and wouldn't identify the patient.\nFour people might have been infected with West Nile virus when they received the kidneys, heart and liver of a woman who was killed in a Georgia car accident, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.\nThe CDC said three of the four patients had developed symptoms of encephalitis, the brain inflammation that is the most serious consequence of West Nile virus disease. The fourth recipient had a mild illness with a fever.\nHealth officials didn't know if the donor was infected with West Nile virus before the accident or if she might have been infected through blood transfusions.\nAll previous cases of West Nile virus in the United States have been linked to mosquito bites, the CDC said.\nHayes said that if officials determine the West Nile came from a transplanted organ or a blood transfusion, it could affect screening for donors, Hayes said.\nAlready this year, at least 555 people in 26 states and the District of Columbia have been infected with West Nile, and at least 28 have died, according to the CDC.\nThe 63-year-old heart recipient with West Nile virus was upgraded from critical to serious condition Sunday, said Evelyn Lichterman, an administrator at Jackson Memorial Hospital.\nOfficials were sure the man didn't contract the disease the disease from a mosquito in Miami-Dade County, said Mary Jo Trepka, epidemiology director with the county health department.