A 2009 Cross-Sectional Survey of Procedures for Post-Mortem Management of Highly Infectious Disease Patients in 48 Isolation Facilities In 16 Countrie

The authors visited 48 isolation facilities in Europe equipped to treat patients or decedents affected by Ebola virus or other highly infectious diseases and evaluated the sites’ preparedness using a standardized checklist. They found that 81.2% of facilities reported written procedures to manage infectious human remains, but only 8.3% had all features required to deal with these human remains safely. The article concludes that improvements in post-mortem management are required.