First Case Of COVID-19 Transmission From Dead Body To Human Confirmed

[IronLionZion]

https://www.ibtimes.com/coronavirus-update-first-case-covid-19-transmission-dead-body-human-confirmed-2957994

KEY POINTS
A medical examiner in Thailand has died after apparently being infected by COVID-19 from a dead patient
Buddhist temples refuse to perform funeral services on perons that died from COVID-19
Medical examiners, morgue technicians and people in funeral homes need to take extra care

Up until this week, the conventional medical knowledge was that bodies of people confirmed to have died from COVID-19 weren't infectious.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had said cadavers generally weren't infectious. The exceptions were persons who died from hemorrhagic fevers such as cholera, Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease. WHO, however, said workers who routinely handle corpses risk contracting tuberculosis, bloodborne viruses (hepatitis B and C and HIV) and gastrointestinal infections (cholera, E. coli, hepatitis A, rotavirus diarrhoea, salmonellosis, shigellosis and typhoid/paratyphoid fevers).

WHO also warned the lungs of patients with pandemic influenza -- if handled improperly during autopsies by medical examiners -- can be infectious. The latter reason seemed to be the cause of an alarming report from Thailand confirming the first death of a medical examiner anywhere in the world after contracting infection from a person who died from COVID-19, according to a story from BuzzFeed News.

A study published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, issued Sunday, said this "is the first report on COVID-19 infection and death among medical personnel in a Forensic Medicine unit." The death was only the second case reported among medical personnel in Thailand, as of March 20. The journal was a peer-reviewed medical journal covering forensic and legal medicine published by Dutch firm, Elsevier.

Complicating any attempt to determine the extent of cadaver infection was why Thailand doesn't collect this data, which was also the case in many other countries.

Many times during this pandemic I've seen people post something about a virus can't live long outside a host. This virus apparently does last for a bit in dead bodies, on surfaces, can be transmitted by seemingly healthy individuals showing no symptoms, and more. This can be very dangerous for the essential workers handling the most gruesome job, removing and transporting dead bodies. It's not a completely new concept as they learned to burn the bodies during the black death plague in medieval times.

[backtoblue]

1. Air is sometimes expelled when moving a dead body

I had a conversation with my state health dept a few weeks ago to discuss this very issue.

He assured me that there was no heightened risk to embalmers and morticians. The only way it could be spread post mortem is from an ocellating saw during an autopsy. He was WRONG. I explained how the embalming process worked and how we were exposed to infectious bodily aerosol.

I asked if it was also blood-borne. Also, a NO. Also WRONG according to some of tge recent studies.

And when I asked about testing...they were WAITING ON THE PRIVATE SECTOR. My state health dept was not working on tests as of the middle of March. I cussed, he was offended, I apologized and we ended the call amicably.

The local funeral homes have enough PPEs for about a week's worth of heavy death rates.

Body bags are very expensive. Some rural funeral homes have few, if any, stored.

I am retired but have been asked to work part time. No. I refuse to put my family's life at risk by handling the dead. If I was working to SAVE lives I would have a completely different attitude.

[HarlanPepper]

2. Hmm I always assumed they were contagious even after death

Seems obvious. But I wonder how they determined that given they would have had to be 100 percent certain the infected person did not encounter the virus anywhere else — at home, from another infected person on public transportation or a grocery store, or literally anywhere. That part seems less obvious.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Horrific level of contagion with this disease. It brings images of overflowing morgues into focus.

It was so easy to assume that once a person dies from the epidemic, as far as he/she goes, that's the end of that disease with him/her.

What a shocking threat to leave with people expected to handle the final steps of a physical life.

Thanks for providing information we need to know.