In all reported cases, the initial symptoms included fever, lethargy, anorexia and leukopenia, and quickly progressed to multisystem organ failure, hepatic insufficiency or severe hepatitis, dysfunction of the transplanted organ, coagulopathy, hypoxia, multiple bacteremias and shock. Localized rash and diarrhea were also seen in some patients. Nearly all cases have been fatal.In May 2005, four solid-organ transplant recipients contracted an illness that was later diagnosed as lymphocytic choriomeningitis. All received organs from a common donor, and within a month of transplantation, three of the four recipients had died as a result of the viral infection. Epidemiologic investigation traced the source to a pet hamster that the organ donor had recently purchased from a Rhode Island pet store. Similar cases occurred in Massachusetts in 2008, and Australia in 2013. There is not a LCMV infection test that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for organ donor screening. The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report advises health-care providers to "consider LCMV infection in patients with aseptic meningitis and encephalitis and in organ transplant recipients with unexplained fever, hepatitis, or multisystem organ failure." Diagnosis
Current or previous infection can be detected through a blood test. However, some authors note that such complement-fixation tests are insensitive and should not be used for diagnosis. Dr. Clare A. Dykewicz, et al. state,

Infection with LCMV should be considered in the differential diagnosis of any compatible, severe viral infection or aseptic meningitis, especially when there is a history of occupational exposure to laboratory rodents.
Further reading
Palacios, Druce, Du, Tran, Birch, Briese, Conlan, Quan, Hui, Marshall, Simons, Egholm, Paddock, Shieh, Goldsmith, Zaki, Catton, Lipkin (2008). "A New Arenavirus in a Cluster of Fatal Transplant-Associated Diseases". The New England Journal of Medicine. 358 (10): 991–998. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa073785. PMID 18256387. {{cite journal}}:  CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links
Virus Pathogen Database and Analysis Resource (ViPR): Arenaviridae