Thailand Reports Its First Case Of Coronavirus Spreading Through Dead Bodies 

A forensic medical practitioner working in Thailand, the capital of Bangkok, has been reported as the first case of a person contracting coronavirus from a dead body of a patient who had tested positive for the virus. The practioner has since then succumbed to the complications arising from COVID-19.

The case has been reported in a letter published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, written by Won Sriwijitalai of Bangkok's RVT Medical Center and Viroj Wiwanitkit of India's DY Patil University. The day the letter was written, on March 20, the number of coronavirus cases in Thailand was 272, including the two medical personnel- the forensic professional and a nursing assistant. Today, the number of confirmed cases in Thailand has crossed 2,600.

"According to our best knowledge, this is the first report on COVID-19 infection and death among medical personnel in a forensic medicine unit," wrote Sriwijitalai and Wiwanitkit.

They also reflected upon how the forensic professional contracted the virus in their letter. They said that at the time when the forensic examiner caught the SARS-CoV-2 virus, most of the people testing positive in Thailand were imported and the virus was yet to spread in the community. Thus "there is low chance of forensic medicine professionals coming into contact with infected patients, but they can have contact with biological samples and corpses," they wrote.

"At 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. Nevertheless, infection control and universal precautions are necessary,” they added.

With dead bodies becoming another medium for the virus to spread, Sriwijitalai and Wiwanitkit also advised forensic professionals to be cautious while working and to wear protective clothing, like a suit, gloves, goggles, cap, masks, and to employ disinfection procedures on corpses.

Experts in other universities, like Angelique Corthals, professor of pathology at the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, also expressed his opinion that even “morgue technicians and the people in funeral homes need to take extra care."

As per Summer Johnson McGee, a health policy expert at the University of New Haven, "autopsies and subsequent investigations present real risks for coroners to acquire COVID-19.”