Preventing Infections
How to prevent infections after a kidney transplant — the daily habits that protect you, the preventive tablets we give for the first six months, and the warning signs that mean call the clinic.
Key Points
- Wash your hands before eating, after the bathroom, and after coughing or sneezing — the single biggest habit that prevents infections.
- Drink two to three litres of water a day (unless your team has told you to drink less), and look after your mouth and your skin every day.
- Cook your food well and avoid raw or undercooked meat, unpasteurised dairy, soft cheese, and raw shellfish — these carry the infections that hit transplant patients hardest.
- Preventive tablets are tailored to your risk and the team's plan — this may include valganciclovir to prevent CMV virus and Septrin (or Bactrim) to prevent pneumocystis pneumonia.
- If you have a rejection episode at any time, the team usually restarts both preventive tablets — and the Septrin is often kept going longer than six months.
- BK virus is a quiet virus most adults carry — the team checks for it on your routine blood tests, and if it appears they adjust your medicines and follow you more closely.
- Avoid crowded indoor places in the first six months — Friday prayer halls, Umrah, large weddings — and follow these precautions again whenever the team raises your immunosuppression for any reason. Discuss any travel with the transplant team in advance.
- Any fever above 38 degrees in the first year is a reason to call the clinic or go to the emergency department straight away, day or night.
Clinical review
Reviewed by Dr Osama Ashry Gheith, Consultant Transplant Nephrologist. Kuwait Center for Nephrology and Kidney Transplantation (KCNKT). Mansoura Urology and Nephrology Center, Egypt. Reviewed 1 August 2026.
About the Transplant Patient Portal
This chapter is part of ASNRT's bilingual (Arabic / English) transplant patient-education portal — 14 clinical chapters covering kidney transplantation from preparation through long-term follow-up, plus decision-aid tools for Ramadan fasting, drug-food interactions, and red-flag symptom triage.
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