Infectivity of deceased COVID-19 patients.
Autopsy
Forensic medicine
Pathology
Post mortem examination
SARS-CoV-2
Journal
International journal of legal medicine
ISSN: 1437-1596
Titre abrégé: Int J Legal Med
Pays: Germany
ID NLM: 9101456
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
Sep 2021
Sep 2021
Historique:
received:
09
11
2020
accepted:
15
02
2021
pubmed:
6
3
2021
medline:
19
8
2021
entrez:
5
3
2021
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
The duration of infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) in living patients has been demarcated. In contrast, a possible SARS-CoV-2 infectivity of corpses and subsequently its duration under post mortem circumstances remain to be elucidated. The aim of this study was to investigate the infectivity and its duration of deceased COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) patients. Four SARS-CoV-2 infected deceased patients were subjected to medicolegal autopsy. Post mortem intervals (PMI) of 1, 4, 9 and 17 days, respectively, were documented. During autopsy, swabs and organ samples were taken and examined by RT-qPCR (real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleic acid (RNA). Determination of infectivity was performed by means of virus isolation in cell culture. In two cases, virus isolation was successful for swabs and tissue samples of the respiratory tract (PMI 4 and 17 days). The two infectious cases showed a shorter duration of COVID-19 until death than the two non-infectious cases (2 and 11 days, respectively, compared to > 19 days), which correlates with studies of living patients, in which infectivity could be narrowed to about 6 days before to 12 days after symptom onset. Most notably, infectivity was still present in one of the COVID-19 corpses after a post-mortem interval of 17 days and despite already visible signs of decomposition. To prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections in all professional groups involved in the handling and examination of COVID-19 corpses, adequate personal safety standards (reducing or avoiding aerosol formation and wearing FFP3 [filtering face piece class 3] masks) have to be enforced for routine procedures.
Identifiants
pubmed: 33665704
doi: 10.1007/s00414-021-02546-7
pii: 10.1007/s00414-021-02546-7
pmc: PMC7932833
doi:
Substances chimiques
RNA, Viral
0
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
2055-2060Informations de copyright
© 2021. The Author(s).
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