Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Tuesday appealed to the Chinese community in the Philippines to work with them for the cremation of the body of a Chinese man who died due to novel coronavirus (nCoV) infection.
Duque made the appeal after a crematorium backed out from cremating the body of the second confirmed nCoV-infected patient in the country.
“I just want to take this opportunity to appeal to the Chinese community that they should help in this case or in future cases if they have cemeteries or crematorium facilities. They should help, they should not discriminate,” the secretary said in a television interview.
The secretary bared that the cremation was supposed to happen Tuesday, three days after the death of the Chinese national was confirmed. The patient was the first nCoV victim who died outside China.
“We’ve been struggling,” Duque admitted. “There are many groups who initially said they will cremate, they will bury in a Chinese cemetery, only to find out later on that they changed their mind that they do not want to cremate anymore. Hopefully, this would be facilitated within the day.”
According to the Code on Sanitation of the Philippines, disposal of a person’s body, who expired due to a dangerous communicable disease “shall be buried within 12 hours after death.”
Duque, however, said that at this point, “it’s very hard to answer whether the body can still transmit the disease because normally the microorganisms should also die with the portal.””
But the secretary pointed out that while the novel coronavirus is a new virus, “not much is really known and is evolving that is why scientists couldn’t say for sure whether this virus is inactivated once a person dies and if it does how long after the person dies.”
While the department has yet to divulged further information on the cremation, they said that arrangements had been done.
“We should cremate that immediately because it is in accordance with the advice of the Chinese Embassy whom we contacted on behalf of the patient,” Duque said.
“We will see today (Tuesday), hopefully this cremation pushes through today,” he added. (Betheena Unite)
