Families whose family members succumbed to Coronavirus will be given only 24 hours to pick their loved ones from the mortuary.
Failure to do so the body will be buried by the government at the nearest mortuary.
Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor says this is part of measures put in place to prevent a pile up of bodies infected with the coronavirus which he says are “potentially infectious.”
“To avoid a situation where we have so many bodies lying in the mortuary and these are bodies that are potentially infectious we came to that decision of having that directive that bodies be buried within 24 hours of death,” he ONs Citizen TV’s Monday Report show.
He stated that the government will provide transport of the body for burial within the 24 hours, adding that if no family member is available within the set period if time the body will be burried at the nearest cemetery to where the person died.
“As government we are going to assist the family transport the body to the place of burial so the question of cost will not come in… Just in case nobody appears within 24 hours we are going to bury the body at the nearest cemetery to where the person died,” he said.
According to Oduor, the victims remains are being put in two body bags with the outer one being thoroughly disinfected to prevent any infections. “Embalming is discouraged because this means when the body comes to the mortuary the mortician will start to manipulate it and in the process, there will be splashes that will potentially carry infection.
To curb the spread of the virus the government has directed that burials be attended by a maximum of 15 close family members to ensure social distancing is maintained.
In Italy and Spain, bodies of those who succumb to Covid-19 are cremated, after the governments initiated a lockdown.
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