Identities of the dead should be preserved after disasters, UN health agency says

Rejecting myths arising out of major historical plagues, relief workers coping with large numbers of people killed by natural disasters such as last week’s earthquake and tsunami in South Asia should make every effort to respect the traditions of the affected communities and preserve the individual identities of the dead, the United Nations health agency says.

In a new manual called “Management of Dead Bodies in Disaster Situations,” the Americas’ bureau of the UN World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), says when deaths result only from disasters, the corpses do not pose a major risk for the spread of infection.

“Regrettably, we continue to be witness to the use of common graves and mass cremations for the rapid disposal of dead bodies owing to the myths and beliefs that corpses pose a high risk of epidemics,” PAHO Director Mirta Roses writes in the book’s foreword. “These measures are carried out without respecting identification processes or preserving the individuality of the deceased.”

Victims should not be buried in mass graves, nor should mass cremations take place if these procedures contravene local cultural and religious norms, the 176-page manual says. Bodies should be buried in a way that permits any needed later exhumation, identification, transfer and final disposal.

“This is a basic human right of surviving family members,” PAHO says.

Myths about the necessity of hasty mass burials came from such experiences as the 14th century “Black Death,” which claimed one-third of Europe’s 75 million people, the US National Institutes of Health’s Karl Western writes.

When certain corpses may carry such communicable diseases as tuberculosis, hepatitis and HIV, the manual recommends protective ways of handling them.