The COVID virus might be transmitted from a corpse to a living being, according to two new studies.
Japanese scientists have actually found traces of coronavirus in the airways, noses and lungs of recently deceased humans and hamsters. Some of the corpses had been dead for 17 days.
If the experts explain that the risks of contamination from a dead person to a living person are rare, they are all the same very real. Forensic pathologists, pathologists, and healthcare workers should exercise extra caution when working near or with a dead body.
The families of the deceased must also be more vigilant, reports the MailOnline.
“It is possible that infectious viruses are transmitted via post-mortem gases produced by the process of decomposition or other post-mortem changes in the cadaver,” say the authors of one of the studies.
A traditional Japanese burial method, in which cotton swabs are used to plug the nostrils, mouth, ears and rectum of the corpse, trapping gases that naturally escape when a person dies, has also proven effective in preventing transmission.
Custom effectively prevented transmission from a dead hamster.
“Therefore, appropriate infection control measures should be taken when handling cadavers,” they conclude.
Japan’s health ministry decided this week to reverse pandemic-era funeral restrictions, which urge bereaved family members in close contact with the deceased to refrain from touching or viewing the body, or even to attend funerals, depriving many families of the possibility of a goodbye.
The ministry said the guidelines, established in July 2020, are expected to be lifted by the end of the year.
It is not the first time that scientists have discovered that corpses can retain traces of infectious diseases and potentially transmit them to others.
A 2021 study found that the infectious virus remained present in one of the corpses 17 days post-mortem, despite already visible signs of decomposition.
Meanwhile, a 2020 study in Thailand reported that a person working on a corpse of someone who died of COVID-19 in a forensic unit became infected shortly followingwards.
