Vaccines, Antibodies and Donors: Varying Attitudes and Policies Surrounding COVID-19 and Heart Transplantation

Successful Pediatric Heart Transplantation from a Deceased Donor with SARS-Cov-2 Infection: A Case Report

“…The transplantation was done in 2022. At that time, important differences between centers were noted [15] , and cases of COVID-19 positive donors were rare. Only 67% of the adult centers and 3 pediatric programs in the USA mandated vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 before transplantation.…”

Transplanting COVID-19–Positive Donor Hearts

“…Between May 2021 and January 2022, the utilization rate of hearts from COVID-19–positive donors was only 17.2%, compared with 28% for all other donors, 3 and as of February 2022 fewer than half of 78 adult and pediatric transplantation medical director survey respondents indicated a willingness to consider donors with positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction test results. 4 All the while the gap between donor heart supply and demand continues to grow, as do cardiac waitlist times. Among waitlisted pediatric patients, wait times during the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020 to June 2021) were 31.4% longer than during the prepandemic period (November 2018 to February 2020).…”