Can COVID-19 be transmitted through dead bodies?

While there hasn’t been enough research done on whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus can survive in corpses and risk health workers handling dead bodies to get infected, the World Health Organization as well as governments of countries all over the world have issued directives in the management of the rising count of dead bodies.

The guidelines cover a variety of issues, including the management of bodies in hospitals, performing autopsies on them as well as instructions for the proper burial or cremation.

An imminent risk hasn’t been attached to the new coronavirus infecting anyone from a dead body, and the WHO has maintained that most agents such as viruses do not survive long in the human body after death. Workers handling dead bodies, however, remain at risk of contracting certain underlying diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera or haemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola, or certain blood-borne viruses.

Read more: COVID-19: Global practices for proper disposal of dead bodies

While there isn’t enough evidence supporting this claim, health officials as well as the WHO have maintained that COVID-19 cannot be transmitted through the air from a dead body.

"The main driver of transmission of COVID-19 is through droplets. There is unlikely to be an increased risk of coronavirus infection from a dead body to health workers or family members who follow standard precautions while handling the body," a health ministry official from the Government of India has been quoted as saying. "Only the lungs of dead COVID-19 patients, if handled during an autopsy, can be infectious."

Even the WHO has supported the claim that only the lungs of the infected person can be a source of infection after death, but cadavers do not pose a risk of transferring the infection onto a living person. However, it goes on to add that health workers constantly handling dead bodies remain at risk of contracting other underlying infections the deceased persons may have had, such as TB, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, HIV or gastrointestinal infections.

Read more: What happens to the lungs when you have COVID-19?

The World Health Organization as well as the Government of India have given out strict guidelines for the management of dead bodies on a large scale to dispel any notion of contracting the infection, especially for the health workers who handle corpses on a daily basis.

Dead bodies do not pose a threat of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but health workers are expected to follow the guidelines to the letter in order to minimize the chances of contracting any infection whatsoever, especially when the death toll is on a constant rise.