The first animal heart transplanted into a man was infected with a porcine virus

He will have gained two months of life thanks to a pig. On January 7, David Bennett was the first man to benefit from a xenograft, in other words the transplant of an organ belonging to another species. He died at the age of 57 on March 8. Before the operation, he suffered from a life-threatening arrhythmia and was only kept alive by an extracorporeal circulation device. And his chances of survival were far too low to allow him to benefit from a conventional transplant.

A few days after the operation, David Bennett was able to sit up in bed and his new heart “beat wonderfully” according to the D teams^r Griffith, the University of Maryland Medical School surgeon who performed the transplant. But a little over a month and a half later, David Bennett’s health is deteriorating. Several edemas appear on the heart which can no longer function properly. “David Bennett has severe heart failure and…