PAHO Book Offers Help on Handling Bodies after Disasters
February 9, 2005.
The book, "Management of Dead Bodies in Disaster Situations", provides the technical information needed to support relief workers in the proper management of dead bodies, based on certain guiding principles. The manual points to misguided measures often triggered by fears that corpses could transmit disease or generate epidemics, including widespread vaccination. The book acknowledges that certain infectious diseases do pose a small threat to those directly charged with handling dead bodies. These include tuberculosis, strep, hepatitis B and C, and HIV. The book offers guidance on protective measures to avoid contagion. The 176-page manual, published in late 2004, was developed by PAHO's Area on Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief as a "tool to be used by national and local authorities and professionals from public institutions that are affected" by natural disasters. To access the book and ordering information please go to www.paho.org/disasters (click on PAHO Publishing and then click on Online Bookstore).
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