Scientists at ICMR National Institute of Traditional Medicine (NITM) have clarified that there was no evidence to prove that coronavirus can spread from the dead.
Reacting to apprehensions among people about the dead spreading infections in some places, NITM director Debprasad Chattopadhyaya said that it is highly unlikely that the dead could infect others.
“A dead man does not sneeze or cough, you see. The dead cannot infect others unless the latter touch droplets on the body and touch their faces later. This could easily be avoided. A body that is buried has zero chances of infecting anyone,’’ he said.
“The virus is completely destroyed in the body of a person who is cured of the disease. A cured person can no longer infect others,’’ he said.
In an informal meeting with The Hindu, senior scientists, apart from Dr. Chattopadhyaya, S.L. Hoti and Harsha Hegde, cleared some doubts in the minds of the common man.
Dr. Chattopadhyaya rejected the theory that coronavirus was created in a laboratory. “It is a myth. It is humanly impossible to create a virus that obeys your command and destroys someone’s life. No one could do it. Neither was coronavirus created that way,’’ he said. It is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus that can mutate on its own. It is not a material to play with,’’ he said. He has worked with viruses for over two decades.
That the virus has no cure is another myth, said Dr. Hoti. “Scientists have developed a drug for HIV. Work is on for devising cures for other viruses,’’ Dr. Hoti said.
“The virus does not transmit through currency notes, newspapers or vegetables. It needs a live human being to survive and reproduce. It spreads through water droplets and aerosol (aero-solution) floating in the air. They can only travel between six feet and nine feet in air. If this can be avoided, the spread can be halted,’’ he said.
``As a precaution, however, vegetables can be kept over night and used the next day,” he said. Vegetables can also be washed in hot water or salt water to disinfect them, Dr. Hoti added.
“The virus does not survive on hot surfaces. The lipid on the virus is denatured at 75-80 degrees Centigrade and the RNA gets denatured at 40-42 degrees Centigrade. Since most Indian cooking involves heating or boiling material at above 100 degrees Centigrade, we should not worry about vegetables or other material that are cooked this way,” Dr. Chattopadhyaya said.
“There is a widespread belief that Indians are more immune than Europeans or Americans. But there is no experimental evidence to prove that. Some people say that collectively we face more pathogens, compared to Europeans. But our public health system is not as good as in Europe and that makes us more vulnerable,’’ he said.
“Isolating elders may not be very difficult, given the various emerging technologies and the widespread use of Aadhaar,’’ said Dr. Hoti.
“Masks can be purchased or home-made. That does not matter as long as the cloth used is not synthetic, and it has three layers. In fact, a home-made mask of cloth may be better as it can be washed in soap water and reused,” Dr. Chattopadhyaya said.
“Coronavirus can be easily defeated by simple measures such as maintaining safe distance, washing hands and resisting from touching your face often,’’ the scientists assured.
