Long persistence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 swab positivity in a drowned corpse: a case report.
J Med Case Rep
; 16(1): 72, 2022 Feb 09.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1690879
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Since the beginning of the worldwide spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 to date, important knowledge has been obtained about the virus behavior in living subjects and on inanimate surfaces; however, there is still a lack of data on virus persistency on dead bodies and the risk of contagion from cadavers. CASE PRESENTATION The present case shows the persistency of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 viral genome in nasopharyngeal swabs performed on a drowned Caucasian man, aged 41 years old, who was completely asymptomatic when he was alive, up to 41 days after death. Specific real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (TaqMan 2019-nCoV Assay Kit v2; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Italy and Realquality RQ-SARS-CoV-2, AB Analytical) was used to evaluate the swabs.CONCLUSIONS:
This data reflect the importance of postmortem swabs in all autopsy cases, and not only in potential severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2-related death, and also highlight the necessity to evaluate virus positivity a long time after the moment of death, even if a low initial viral load was assessed.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Case report
/
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adult
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
English
Journal:
J Med Case Rep
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S13256-022-03297-8
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS