New reports reveal that a forensic died from coronavirus after getting exposed to a COVID-19 dead body. This new finding sparks safety concerns for morgue and funeral home workers who are handling cadavers of those who die from coronavirus.
“Not just the medical examiners, but morgue technicians and the people in funeral homes need to take extra care,” said Angelique Corthals, a professor of pathology at CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, according to Intelligencer.
The danger of exposing these people to the dead is not yet being studied. There is no information as to how long will the coronavirus survive in a dead body. This lack of data makes it harder to determine what particular protective measures needs to be taken by forensic workers and morgue technicians.
In an email to BuzzFeed News, health policy expert Summer Johnson McGee of the University of New Haven said that anyone who will be in contact with a COVID-19 positive body, whether dead or alive, should be wearing a personal protective equipment to ensure safety.
Thailand's Department of Medical Services previously announced on March 25 that the bodies of coronavirus victims were not contagious. But morgue workers are doubtful, raising concerns about facilities that were built in a rush in order to deal with the massive number of coronavirus deaths.
The study
As indicated by the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine Study, the deadly virus was picked up by a medical examiner in Thailand from an infected collection in March.
Forensic medicine professionals have a low possibility of coming into contact with infected patients, Won Sriwijitalai of the RVT Medical Center in Bangkok and Viroj Wiwanitkit of Hainan Medical University in China, the authors of the study.
Biological samples and corpses are at high risk of having the disease to be carried over.
Among the COVID-19 patients in Thailand were a forensic medicine professional and a nurse assistant.
There is no specific number or information of COVID-19 contaminated corpses since it is not their routine practice to check on dead bodies in Thailand.
Can dead body spread coronavirus?
If they needed to check for infection control and universal precautions, the forensic professionals should wear protective equipment, this includes a protective suit, gloves, and masks, the authors added.
Disinfection procedure is utilized in operation rooms may be applied in pathology units as well.
Burial service and medical workers across countries have gotten frightful of dead bodies potentially carrying COVID-19, as morgues across countries become overwhelmed.
Thailand's Department of Medical Services guaranteed that individuals can't carry COVID-19 after they die.
The World Health Organization clarifies that aside from in instances of hemorrhagic fevers, for example, Ebola, Marburg, and cholera, dead bodies are commonly not infectious. the virus stops spreading once its host dies and there is no chance of it being transmitted to another individual.
Whenever dealt inappropriately during a post-mortem examination, only the lungs of patients with pandemic flu can be infectious. The dead bodies of patients who died from COVID-19 are not contagious,
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