Dead bodies in Haiti do not pose health risk

percentage of the adult Haitian population is infected with HIV, however — UNAIDS, the UN Joint Program on HIV/AIDS, estimates some 2.2 percent — and relief workers do handle corpses with care. There is even a manual on how to do it: In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the Red Cross and other public health groups, published Management of Dead Bodies after Disasters: A Field Manual for first responders, which among other things suggests that workers wear gloves and boots when handling dead bodies, wash their hands frequently and avoid wiping their faces with their hands. Although dead bodies do not typically spread infections, they often do release fecal matter than can make people sick.

Because it can be difficult to shake the notion that dead bodies are dangerous, survivors and health officials in the aftermath of a disaster often dispose of dead bodies in an inappropriate manner: by burying victims before identifying them, or not allowing family members to honor their customary burial procedures. “Most people don’t encounter death, certainly on this magnitude and with the disfiguring injuries that you see following a natural disaster like this,” so they sometimes act rashly, Rottman notes.

It is also difficult to know how best to handle corpses when there are just so many of them. Sometimes, says Linda Degutis, director of the Yale University Center for Public Health Preparedness, burying them in mass graves really is the most humane way. “It’s probably far more disturbing to have a lot of dead bodies laying around that aren’t being moved and buried,” she says. If workers wait too long in the hopes that family members come forward to identify the bodies, they will start to decompose; in warm climates such as Haiti’s, it can take as few as twelve hours for bodies to decompose so much that it’s impossible to recognize the faces.

Wenner writes that when burying the dead after natural disasters, the WHO manual notes that it is important to ensure that burial sites are at least 650 feet from drinking water sources. Otherwise, decomposed remains can contaminate the water. It is also crucial to bury the bodies deep enough — at least 5 feet down — so that subsequent rains do not expose the bodies again.

Ultimately, Rottman says, the biggest threat to public health in Haiti right now does not stem from exposure to dead bodies, but from the lack of access to clean water and food. “The restoration of basic hygiene is just critical to suppress communicable diseases,” he says. He hopes that the ongoing relief efforts will ultimately put Haiti’s infrastructure back together so that it is stronger than it was before. “The mantra of disaster recovery is not to put it back the way it was before it happened, but to make it better and more resistant to subsequent hazards,” he says.