Dead Bodies from Natural Disasters Do Not Pose Health Risks, WHO Says

 A member of a rescue team searches for dead bodies, following deadly floods in Derna, Libya September 17, 2023. (Reuters)
A member of a rescue team searches for dead bodies, following deadly floods in Derna, Libya September 17, 2023. (Reuters)
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Dead Bodies from Natural Disasters Do Not Pose Health Risks, WHO Says

 A member of a rescue team searches for dead bodies, following deadly floods in Derna, Libya September 17, 2023. (Reuters)
A member of a rescue team searches for dead bodies, following deadly floods in Derna, Libya September 17, 2023. (Reuters)

Contrary to popular belief, the bodies of victims of natural disasters rarely pose a health threat to communities, the Red Cross and the World Health Organization (WHO) said, calling for precautions and protection of drinking water sources by keeping the bodies away, according to Agence France Press (AFP).

"Those who survive an event like a natural disaster are more likely to spread disease than dead bodies," noted experts.

Their advice comes after major flooding in Libya and an earthquake in Morocco that left thousands of deaths. When buried under rubble, scattered over it, or floating in water, dead bodies make a terrible scene that often prompts people to rush to bury them.

Authorities often try to bury the dead as swiftly as possible, which can heighten suffering for relatives and create legal problems for victims' families.

Injuries, drowning and burns

Generally, the remains of victims of natural disasters - or wars - do not cause epidemics, because people die as a result of injuries, drowning, or burns, and therefore they don’t carry germs that are likely to cause epidemics, according to the World Health Organization and the Red Cross Society. This means that corpses pose a "negligible" health risk.

However, the case is different with deaths resulting from infectious diseases such as Ebola, Marburg or cholera, or if disaster strikes in an area where infectious diseases are endemic.

"Those who survive an event like a natural disaster are more likely to spread disease than dead bodies," said Pierre Guyomarch, head of forensics at the Red Cross.

Protection of water sources

In the aftermath of any disaster, precautions must be taken to protect water sources, which could become contaminated with feces that come out of dead bodies.

Drinking contaminated water could cause diarrhea or other diseases. The water intended for consumption should simply be disinfected using ordinary means to eliminate dangerous germs.

"It's not the body that's the main cause of danger, it's everything in the water," such as mud and chemicals, noted WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.

Avoiding rushed burial

But the idea that corpses can spread disease is a misunderstanding which often "pushes people to hastily bury the dead and make it more likely that people will go missing, leaving their loved ones in anguish for years to come," said Bilal Sablouh, regional forensics advisor for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The pressure resulting from such rumors in particular could encourage mass burials that are carried out in a hurry and in a way that rarely honors the dead.

"We urge authorities in communities touched by tragedy to not rush forward with mass burials or mass cremations," said Dr. Kazunobu Kojima, medical officer for biosafety and biosecurity in WHO’s Health Emergencies Program.

The WHO and Red Cross recommend the identification of bodies, well managed burials that include easily traceable and properly documented individual graves in demarcated burial sites.

Lime powder does not hasten decomposition, and since dead bodies in disaster or conflict are generally not an infectious risk, the disinfection of these bodies is not needed.



Plastics Are Seeping into Farm Fields, Food and Eventually Human Bodies. Can They Be Stopped?

Alexandra Water Warriors volunteers cleanup the Juksei river in the heart of Alexandra township from plastic pollution in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)
Alexandra Water Warriors volunteers cleanup the Juksei river in the heart of Alexandra township from plastic pollution in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)
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Plastics Are Seeping into Farm Fields, Food and Eventually Human Bodies. Can They Be Stopped?

Alexandra Water Warriors volunteers cleanup the Juksei river in the heart of Alexandra township from plastic pollution in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)
Alexandra Water Warriors volunteers cleanup the Juksei river in the heart of Alexandra township from plastic pollution in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)

In Uganda's Mbale district, famous for its production of arabica coffee, a plague of plastic bags locally known as buveera is creeping beyond the city.

It's a problem that has long littered the landscape in Kampala, the capital, where buveera are woven into the fabric of daily life. They show up in layers of excavated dirt roads and clog waterways. But now, they can be found in remote areas of farmland, too. Some of the debris includes the thick plastic bags used for planting coffee seeds in nurseries.

Some farmers are complaining, said Wilson Watira, head of a cultural board for the coffee-growing Bamasaba people. “They are concerned – those farmers who know the effects of buveera on the land,” he said.

Around the world, plastics find their way into farm fields. Climate change makes agricultural plastic, already a necessity for many crops, even more unavoidable for some farmers.

Meanwhile, research continues to show that itty-bitty microplastics alter ecosystems and end up in human bodies. Scientists, farmers and consumers all worry about how that's affecting human health, and many seek solutions. But industry experts say it’s difficult to know where plastic ends up or get rid of it completely, even with the best intentions of reuse and recycling programs.

According to a 2021 report on plastics in agriculture by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, soils are one of the main receptors of agricultural plastics. Some studies have estimated that soils are more polluted by microplastics than the oceans.

“These things are being released at such a huge, huge scale that it’s going to require major engineering solutions,” said Sarah Zack, an Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Great Lakes Contaminant Specialist who communicates about microplastics to the public.

Micro-particles of plastic that come from items like clothes, medications and beauty products sometimes appear in fertilizer made from the solid byproducts of wastewater treatment — called biosolids — which can also be smelly and toxic to nearby residents depending on the treatment process used. Some seeds are coated in plastic polymers designed to strategically disintegrate at the right time of the season, used in containers to hold pesticides or stretched over fields to lock in moisture.

But the agriculture industry itself only accounts for a little over three percent of all plastics used globally. About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, including single-use plastic food and beverage containers.

Microplastics, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines as being smaller than five millimeters long, are their largest at about the size of a pencil eraser. Some are much smaller.

Studies have already shown that microplastics can be taken up by plants on land or plankton in the ocean and subsequently eaten by animals or humans. Scientists are still studying the long-term effects of the plastic that's been found in human organs, but early findings suggest possible links to a host of health conditions including heart disease and some cancers.

Despite “significant research gaps,” the evidence related to the land-based food chain “is certainly raising alarm,” said Lev Neretin, environment lead at the FAO, which is currently working on another technical report looking deeper into the problem of microplastic pollution in soils and crops.

A study out this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that microplastics pollution can even impact plants' ability to photosynthesize, the process by which they turn light from the sun into energy. That doesn't “justify excessive concern” but does “underscore food security risks that necessitate scientific attention,” wrote Fei Dang, one of the study's authors.

The use of plastics has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Plastic is ubiquitous. And most of the world's plastic goes to landfills, pollutes the environment or is burned. Less than 10% of plastics are recycled.

At the same time, some farmers are becoming more reliant on plastics to shelter crops from the effects of extreme weather. They're using tarps, hoop houses and other technology to try to control conditions for their crops. And they're depending more on chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers to buffer against unreliable weather and more pervasive pest issues.

“Through global warming, we have less and less arable land to make crops on. But we need more crops. So therefore the demand on agricultural chemicals is increasing,” said Ole Rosgaard, president and CEO of Greif, a company that makes packaging used for industrial agriculture products like pesticides and other chemicals.

Extreme weather, fueled by climate change, also contributes to the breakdown and transport of agricultural plastics. Beating sun can wear on materials over time. And more frequent and intense rainfall events in some areas could drive more plastic particles running into fields and eventually waterways, said Maryam Salehi, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Missouri.

This past winter, leaders from around the world gathered in South Korea to produce the first legally binding global treaty on plastics pollution. They didn't reach an agreement, but the negotiations are scheduled to resume in August.

Neretin said the FAO produced a provisional, voluntary code of conduct on sustainable management of plastics in agriculture. But without a formal treaty in place, most countries don't have a strong incentive to follow it.

“The mood is certainly not cheery, that's for sure,” he said, adding global cooperation “takes time, but the problem does not disappear.”

Without political will, much of the onus falls on companies.

Rosgaard, of Greif, said that his company has worked to make their products recyclable, and that farmers have incentives to return them because they can get paid in exchange. But he added it's sometimes hard to prevent people from just burning the plastic or letting it end up in fields or waterways.

“We just don’t know where they end up all the time,” he said.

Some want to stop the flow of plastic and microplastic waste into ecosystems. Boluwatife Olubusoye, a PhD candidate at the University of Mississippi, is trying to see whether biochar, remains of organic matter and plant waste burned under controlled conditions, can filter out microplastics that run from farm fields into waterways. His early experiments have shown promise.

He said he was motivated by the feeling that there was “never any timely solution in terms of plastic waste" ending up in fields in the first place, especially in developing countries.

Even for farmers who care about plastics in soils, it can be challenging for them to do anything about it. In Uganda, owners of nursery beds cannot afford proper seedling trays, so they resort to cheaply made plastic bags used to germinate seeds, said Jacob Ogola, an independent agronomist there.

Farmers hardest hit by climate change are least able to reduce the presence of cheap plastic waste in soils. That frustrates Innocent Piloya, an agroecology entrepreneur who grows coffee in rural Uganda with her company Ribbo Coffee.

"It's like little farmers fighting plastic manufacturers,” she said.