CDC: 4th organ recipient has West Nile

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Thursday that the fourth person who received organs from a Georgia woman has the West Nile virus.

Health officials had earlier determined that three of the four organ recipients were infected with the West Nile virus. One of the three died.

Health officials still do not say conclusively that the four were infected through the transplants. But Dr. Lyle Petersen, deputy director of the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, said the evidence "very strongly suggests" that they were.

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It would be the first known case of the mosquito-borne virus being transmitted from person to person.

All the patients lived in areas where mosquito-borne transmission of the virus is occurring.

Officials are still investigating whether the organ donor was infected through blood transfusions she received from more than 60 people before she died. Petersen said at this point it remains a "theoretical possibility."

Meanwhile, health officials are investigating a second suspected case of infection through blood transfusion.

The CDC says a woman in Mississippi tested positive for West Nile virus four weeks after she received blood transfusions.

There is currently no test that quickly and accurately determines the presence of the virus, health officials say.

To date, 854 cases of human infection from the virus have been reported from 28 states and the District of Columbia. The number of deaths has risen to 48.

However, the CDC advises that most people never know they have been infected with the virus, one of five develop mild flu-like symptoms, while less than 1 percent develop severe neurological disease.