Now that is a genuine horror story, one to rival the warped imagination of the most sensation-driven writer hoping to make a name for himself in a novelistic portrayal of the potential pitfalls of modern surgical medical techniques, attempting to provide hope, security and quality of life to the needy, medical-condition afflicted.

We went through the dreadful after-effects of people with haemophilia and others requiring blood transfusions, discovering themselves to be infected with HIV, with Hepatitis C and B, and a host of other infections, including human cell lymphotropic viruses. Government commissioned public medical enquiries led to the conclusion that insufficient care was taken in lab screening tests through nucleic and antibody tests, to ensure that blood commonly used for transfusions for a variety of reasons was reasonably free from the potential transmission of viruses, parasites and bacteria.

Now comes news of an infected organ donation which resulted in four transplant recipients being placed in the dreadful position of potential infection of rabies. One of the transplant recipients and the organ donor were discovered to have raccoon rabies embedded in their brain tissue; that recipient of an infected donor kidney has since died.

Florida doctors involved in the transplantation of the donor's heart, liver and kidneys had failed to test whether the 20-year-old donor was infected with anything that would prove conducive to transmission of a deadly virus. Unknown to the donor and to the doctors, was his infection with the raccoon rabies virus, discovered to be lodged in his brain tissue.

The three recipients of the young man's heart, liver and other kidney are now receiving anti-rabies vaccinations, and none has so far exhibited untoward symptoms of the rabies virus having established itself in their donated organs or elsewhere within their bodies.