Postmortem Stability of SARS-CoV-2 in Nasopharyngeal Mucosa
Fabian Heinrich, K. Meißner, Felicia Langenwalder, Klaus Püschel, Dominik Nörz, Armin Hoffmann, Marc Lütgehetmann, Martin Aepfelbacher, Eric Bibiza-Freiwald, Susanne Pfefferle, Axel Heinemann
Abstract
D etailed analyses of severe acute respiratory syn- drome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission have shown the virus to be highly transmissible through droplet and contact-transmitted viral spreading; reproduction indices were 2.2-3.6 (1). Amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, case-fatality rates of up to 9.26% occur in areas hard-struck by SARS-CoV-2 (2). The likelihood of virus transmission through deceased persons remains unclear. However, in recent pandemics of influenza, high and sustainable virus stability and infectivity within corpses were demonstrated (3,4), necessitating careful and conscious handling. To determine the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 transmission through deceased persons, we conducted a study of postmortem viral RNA stability.