Pre-Transplant Diagnosis in Donors and Recipients from Countries with High Prevalence of Parasitic Infections

The guidelines to the German law regarding organ transplantation § 16, consider as con-traindications to organ transplantation clinically apparent infections of donors and recipi-ents. These criteria are designed to avoid life-threatening infections after transplantation under immunosuppression. For organ transplantation, where donors and/or recipients come from countries with high prevalence of parasitic infections, diagnostic investigations have to take into account the endemia of such diseases according to the country of origin. In these cases clinical mani-festations are often absent and exacerbation of undiagnosed latent parasitic infections may cause life-threatening complications under immunosuppression.