Dead bodies and health risks

After catastrophes with extensive loss of life due to trauma, much resource is often expended on burying the dead quickly, and applying disinfectant to bodies, to prevent disease.

According to health professionals the fear of bodies spreading disease is not justified. Amongst others, Steven Rottman, director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters, said that no scientific evidence existed that bodies of disaster victims increased the risk of epidemics, adding that cadavers in fact posed less risk of contagion than living people.

In disasters where there is competition for resources, more effort should be spent caring for survivors (improving sanitation, providing clean water or facilities for boiling or otherwise disinfecting water, providing food, clothing and shelter), and less disinfecting and disposing urgently of the dead. Religious and cultural practices, the stench, and the effect on morale must of course also be taken into consideration.

The incorrect notion that dead bodies inherently spread diseases is probably a combination of (a) the incorrect miasma theory of disease: diseases are spread by foul air — you get malaria from breathing marsh air, cholera from breathing foul air from untreated sewage, and diseases from the stench of decomposing corpses; and (b) the true fact that corpses of those who died from certain contagious diseases do, indeed, spread disease.

While, of course, research and evidence must override any commonsensical arguments, there is not even any logical reason for non-diseased corpses to spread disease: micro-organisms do not come into being by spontaneous generation, any more than flies are generated spontaneously by rotting rubbish, rather than hatching eggs. Disease micro-organisms are not the same as those causing decay.

External links

Detailed information is to be found in the following documents:

• Infectious Disease Risks… Following Natural Disasters
• WHO guidelines on hygiene precautions when dealing with disposal of remains
• Health and safety information related to water purification, disease prevention, and management of dead bodies

See also:

• CNN — WHO: Corpses pose little threat
• Slate — Are Dead Bodies Dangerous?
• Mass burials do more harm than good-experts