In the United States, several medical institutions are directing organ donations to patients who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, relegating the unvaccinated to the bottom transplant waiting lists.
The story of Leilani Lutali (56), originally from Colorado, recently made the front pages of several newspapers. A few weeks ago, the UCHealth health facility in Denver refused to transplant her a kidney because she was not vaccinated. In a letter, doctors informed her that she would be listed as "inactivated" on the transplant waiting list if she did not receive a first dose of the vaccine within thirty days. Interviewed by the Associated Press, this American said that she opposed vaccines for religious reasons.
This woman's case is just one of many recorded in more than 250 organ transplant centers across the country. The idea behind this statement is simple:with pandemic coronavirus transmission still high in the United States, unvaccinated transplant candidates are facing an extremely high risk of Covid-19 .
Receiving a transplanted organ requires patients to take immunosuppressive drugs that will prevent their body from rejecting said organ. As a result, this immune suppression also makes recipients highly susceptible to infection with SARS-CoV-2. According to some experts quoted by Ars Technica, the risk for transplant recipients of dying from Covid-19 can reach 20 to 30% . But doctors can't afford to "waste" organs.
This is not the first time that this type of argument has been put forward with the aim of prioritizing the people who will receive organs according to the chances of survival . Smokers have long been asked to stop smoking for six months before receiving lung transplants, or alcoholics and drug addicts to abstain from alcohol and drugs before receiving a new liver. Requiring a complete vaccination schedule against infectious diseases is also very common.
Also, for many establishments, favoring people vaccinated against Covid-19 is completely normal, given the scarcity of available organs and the availability anti-covid vaccines.
“We mandate hepatitis and flu shots, and no one has a problem with that “, tells KHN Dr. Kapilkumar Patel, director of the lung transplant program at Tampa General Hospital in Florida. “And now we have this vaccine that can save lives and impact the post-transplant recovery phase. And we have this huge public outcry “.
In addition, establishments only follow recommendations. On August 13, members of the American Society of Transplantation and the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) issued a joint statement calling for "all transplant recipients solid organ cells are vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 “.
Also more and more transplant programs are adopting this policy, but not all of them yet. Leilani Lutali, mentioned at the beginning of the article, is now turning to Texas or Florida, which are more flexible on anti-Covid vaccination campaigns.
