Dead bodies in natural disasters do not pose a health risk

[illflem]

After hearing the MSM repeatedly say that the dead bodies from the tsunami would spread disease and personally experiencing many dead bodies in Vietnam without ill effect I decided search the medical mainstream. Nowhere could I find anyone who claimed dead bodies spread disease.
Is the MSM doing was it does best again by sensationalizing the tragedy to keep viewers?

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Fears that dead bodies spread disease after a natural disaster are unfounded and only compound the distress of those who survive, according to a review.
There is a widespread belief that epidemics are a big risk after a natural disaster such as an earthquake because dead bodies spread infection. This has led to hurried disposal of bodies, maybe even before proper identification can take place.

However, Dr Oliver Morgan of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says the evidence does not support this view. He has worked with disaster relief groups in Latin America, India, Africa and the Balkans. Disaster victims are no more likely than anyone else to be harboring an infectious disease. Even if they were, the infectious agent would not survive long after death. If normal hygiene is practiced there is little risk to those handling bodies. Unjustified worries can lead to rapid, unplanned disposal of the dead and unnecessary precautions such as burying the dead in common graves. This means that survivors may not know the whereabouts of those who have been lost, which adds to their distress. There is also little hard evidence that proper burial of bodies contaminates ground water. It is time for health professionals to treat the dead after a natural disaster in keeping with scientific principles and set aside unfounded fears about the risk they pose.


Source
Pan American Journal of Public Health May 2004

http://www.healthandage.com/Home/gm=20!gid1=5865

[Wiley50]

1. Leaving them laying around promotes MENTAL ILLNESS

as if there wouldn't be enough around already

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Hmmm as a disaster manager for the Red Cross (mexican)

and veteran of more than one disaster I can tell you it is not that the body has infections... but that if it is not taken care off in a proper way bacteria will grow, decomposition process, and lead to water contamination.

This is why you need to take care of them... oh and you also do it because of the smell and the way it affects mental health.

No the MSM for once is not trying to sensationalize things... then again tehir coverage is well behind the Blake trial anyway.

[KSAtheist]

3. You forget.

The bodies themselves pose little risk, but what's inside the bodies can.

Say the tsunami killed a person with cholera--not unlikely, since about 34,000 Indians contracted the disease in 2001. Now, the bacteria causing cholera rests within the stool of the infected. And, since the bowel muscles loosen upon death, the stool of the infected could conceivably leech into the groundwater.

That's why your third-world countries--your Senegals, your Chads--still suffer frequent outbreaks. They lack modern sewer technology, which has pretty much ended the Cholera threat in your first and second world countries.

[mulethree]

7. how many of those non-modern sewers are cesspools?

or sewage settling ponds. They have problems with 'livestock waste ponds' in the U.S. during floods. Untreated waste washing about.

[arcos]

4. the key phrase is... "If normal hygiene is practiced..."

How can they practice normal hygiene if there is no clean water, no medicines, no soap, no place to bury so many people at once?

[latteromden]

5. Well, at least in the tsunami case - could it have to do with

contamination of the drinking water? Not only would mud and debris come in from the ocean and contaminate the water, but add to that a bunch of corpses, and it seems to me like that could be cause for concern re: epidemics.

[burn the bush]

6. decomposing people in your water supply could be a problem

plus if any of those people were carrying disease, wouldn't they be more likely to spread?

[Maple]

8. Dead bodies

draw bugs and scavengers, and decomposition causes it own hazards.

And they are everywhere,including the water supply.

[pacifictiger]

9. Why would you even post this article?

There has not been a tsunami of this magnitude in any of the countries referenced to be compared to this event. So an earthquake in Africa buries some people - not much comparative urgency I might agree. But we're dealing with massive amounts of water invasion here over an incredibly large area. The most widespread disaster in modern recorded history without a doubt.

The problem is that there IS no regular clean drinking water supply
anymore. Infrastructure is gone. No way to practice "normal hygene" either.
"Unjustified worries can lead to rapid, unplanned disposal of the dead and unnecessary precautions such as burying the dead in common graves. This means that survivors may not know the whereabouts of those who have been lost, which adds to their distress." Sounds like they're talking about a disaster in a neatly contained area.

Many bodies may never be recovered from the ocean. Shark food.
With over a million survivors displaced, and infrastructure gone, I would think the distress level would be at maximum for some time. Perhaps in a several weeks they may get beyond pure survival mode, but in the meantime, where are you going to keep 60thousand plus rotting corpses in 30+C temperatures? And where will people get water to drink?

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Cholera comes to mind right away as a major risk.

And the smell alone would have to be unbelievable, what with dead livestock and humans, and make life much more difficult for the survivors. Muslims also have a religious belief in burying the dead within 24 hours so that's a factor in the Muslim areas.