Vijayawada: Though Covid-19 cases have been increasing in AP, the community transmission is less which is clear from the fact that the virus tests conducted on the bodies of the victims of unnatural deaths like suicides and murders were negative.
The state government had issued an order on April 10 directing all collectors to ensure that the bodies of suspected Covid-19 patients should not be handed over to the family members or relatives till virus test results were received.
All government medical colleges, area hospitals and community health centres have started Covid-19 tests on the victims of unnatural deaths before conducting post-mortem. If the tests positive, the authorities follow Covid-19 protocol for the disposal of the bodies.
After the lockdown was imposed on March 25, road accidents have come down but unnatural deaths like suicides and murder have gone up. On an average, 4,000 unnatural deaths were reported per month in the state and all the bodies were tested before post-mortem.
Dr Subba Rao, assistant professor (forensic medicine), Government Medical College, Ongole, said, “We conduct Covid-19 tests on the victims of unnatural deaths and so far not a single body has tested positive. This indicates that community transmission is relatively less in the state,” he said.
On the other hand, two PG doctors from forensic medicine department in Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam, who conduct post-mortems, tested positive recently. With this, all the health staff in the mortuary were sent to quarantine at KGH and the mortuary was shut down. The source of their infection was yet to be established.
