{"id":12065,"date":"2020-04-15T10:38:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T14:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/?p=12065"},"modified":"2020-05-25T11:20:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T15:20:57","slug":"covid-19-update-new-study-indicates-coronavirus-can-jump-from-the-dead-to-the-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/covid-19-update-new-study-indicates-coronavirus-can-jump-from-the-dead-to-the-living\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 UPDATE: New study indicates coronavirus can jump from the dead to the living"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The coronavirus crisis has taken on a new, frightening dimension after it was discovered that a dead patient infected with the disease had spread it to a medical examiner.<\/p>\n

Experts say the death, which happened in Thailand, marks the first time that a staff member at a forensic medicine unit dealing with dead bodies has been found to have contracted the virus.<\/p>\n

The development is putting professionals who deal with dead bodies on notice \u2014 this is a virus that can jump from the dead to the living \u2014 reported BuzzFeed, citing a study<\/a> in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to our best knowledge, this is the first report on COVID-19 infection and death among medical personnel in a Forensic Medicine unit,\u201d reads an introduction to the study<\/a>. The study encourages professionals to take the same care at morgues as they would in an operating theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt present, there is no data on the exact number of COVID-19 contaminated corpses since it is not a routine practice to examine for COVID-19 in dead bodies in Thailand,\u201d the study adds.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNevertheless, infection control and universal precautions are necessary. Forensic professionals have to wear protective devices including a protective suit, gloves, goggles, cap and mask. The disinfection procedure used in operation rooms might be applied in pathology\/forensic units too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study was authored by Won Sriwijitalai of Bangkok, Thailand\u2019s RVT Medical Center and Viroj Wiwanitkit of Hainan Medical University in China.<\/p>\n

<\/img>

\nA truck transports a cardboard makeshift casket to the Jardines de la Paz cementery on April 9, 2020 in Guayaquil, Ecuador.<\/span>
\n<\/p>\n

Eduardo Maquilon\/Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Are the bodies of COVID-19 victims infectious?<\/p>\n

Ahmad Samarji, an associate professor of forensic science based in Lebanon, writes<\/a> it is just not clear yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know whether human remains are infectious, but the likelihood is high,\u201d Samarji says in an article in The Conversation<\/a>. \u201cSo forensic pathologists around the world\u00a0are\u00a0urging governments\u00a0to\u00a0restrict viewing\u00a0and\u00a0handling of the body after examination is completed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samarji noted that during the Ebola epidemic \u2013 which killed close to 11,300 people in West Africa between 2014 and 2015 \u2013 handling of the dead was one of the main modes of transmission of the disease. This is why untrained first responders should not\u00a0 handle human remains during outbreaks of highly contagious diseases, he warned.<\/span><\/p>\n

Samarji said to avoid a backup of deceased patients, authorities should allow the treating clinician to issue the certification of medical death due to COVID-19, without the need for a post-mortem examination.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey must also set up temporary mortuaries big enough to accommodate thousands of bodies. British authorities, for example, are building a special COVID-19 mortuary at the Birmingham Airport to accommodate 12,000 bodies. And, yes, they may need to excavate mass graves.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this must be done while ensuring a dignified burial for the bodies and proper labeling of the graves as required by international humanitarian law.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/img>

\nOfficials in Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukrainian, have excavated more than 600 graves for coronavirus victims, as of April 7, 2020.<\/span>
\n<\/p>\n

STANISLAV VEDMID\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thai officials had, in March, told the public that dead bodies could not transmit COVID-19; a report in the Bangkok Post<\/a> quoted Somsak Akhasilp, director-general of the country\u2019s Department of Medical Services, as saying that once the host died, the virus died with them. By Tuesday, Thailand had reported 2,613 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 41 fatalities.<\/p>\n

Other global health bodies had provided conflicting reports and as of yet there is no major research conducted into the transmissibility of COVID-19 from corpses to living people.<\/p>\n

The WHO says in an online explainer<\/a> on disease control during natural disasters:<\/p>\n

\u201cContrary to common belief, there is no evidence that corpses pose a risk of epidemic disease after a natural disaster. Most agents do not survive long in the human body after death. Human remains only pose a substantial risk to health in a few special cases, such as deaths from cholera or haemorrhagic fevers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorkers who routinely handle corpses may however risk contracting tuberculosis, bloodborne viruses (eg hepatitis B and C and HIV) and gastrointestinal infections (e.g. cholera, E. coli, hepatitis A, rotavirus diarrhoea, salmonellosis, shigellosis and typhoid\/paratyphoid fevers).\u201d<\/p>\n

Summer Johnson McGee, a health expert at the University of New Haven, told BuzzFeed:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone coming into contact with a COVID19 positive body, alive or dead, should be using personal protective equipment to prevent exposure. Autopsies and subsequent investigations present real risks for coroners to acquire COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 with a file from Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n

\n<\/hr>\n

Listen to our news podcast, 10\/3, on Apple Podcasts<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The coronavirus crisis has taken on a new, frightening dimension after it was discovered that a dead patient infected with the disease had spread it to a medical examiner.Experts say the death, which happened in Thailand, marks the first time that a staff member at a forensic medicine unit dealing with dead bodies has been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[120,162,161,157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16597,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12065\/revisions\/16597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}