Did pig virus kill heart op man?

THE first human to be given a pig’s heart may have been killed by a dormant animal virus that had not shown up in tests carried out before the operation.

David Bennett, 57, who was terminally ill and did not qualify for a human transplant, was given the operation in the US in January but died two months later.

Dr Bartley Griffith, who performed the transplant, said Mr Bennett had been recovering well, but one morning woke with symptoms similar to an infection.

Doctors gave him antibiotics and other drugs, but the heart became swollen, filled with fluid and stopped working.

Scientists at the University of Maryland have since found traces of porcine cytomegalovirus, although there were no signs that it was causing an active infection, so it may not have been the cause of death. Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin, of the university’s xenotransplant programme, said they were working on stronger tests to ‘make sure that we don’t miss these kinds of viruses’.