Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nnewi Campus, Nnewi, Nigeria.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Anat Sci Educ. 2021 Mar;14(2):154-162. doi: 10.1002/ase.2047. Epub 2021 Feb 12.
The current Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has spread to about 220 countries of the world and has resulted in a significant number of deaths globally. Infections are still on the rise, and the impact on the global death rate could be devastating. There are fears over the likely impact of a large number of deaths on body sourcing and handling of cadavers for teaching and research. Historically, epidemics come with several challenges and have often led to some level of negligence of ethical practices and health and safety regulations associated with body sourcing and handling. The authors highlighted some emerging problems in this article, focusing on Africa and Nigeria in particular. These problems include a higher risk of coronavirus exposure for body handlers, shortage of cadavers for teaching and learning, a lack of standard regulations leading to unethical body sourcing and handling, and a lack of monitoring and collaboration needed for a well-coordinated Covid-19 pandemic response strategy. If these issues are ignored, the previous gains made in anatomical ethical practices may be destroyed. Some useful recommendations for policymaking geared toward prevention or curtailing these emerging issues have been instilled in this article.
当前的冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行已蔓延到世界上约 220 个国家，导致了全球大量的死亡人数。感染人数仍在上升，对全球死亡率的影响可能是毁灭性的。人们担心大量死亡对尸体来源和尸体处理的影响，包括尸体教学和研究。历史上，流行病带来了一些挑战，而且往往导致与尸体来源和处理相关的一些道德实践和健康与安全法规被忽视。本文作者重点关注非洲和尼日利亚，强调了一些新出现的问题。这些问题包括尸体处理人员接触冠状病毒的风险更高，教学和学习用的尸体短缺，缺乏标准的规范导致不道德的尸体来源和处理，以及缺乏协调 COVID-19 大流行应对策略所需的监测和合作。如果这些问题被忽视，以前在解剖学道德实践方面取得的成果可能会被破坏。本文提出了一些有用的政策制定建议，旨在预防或遏制这些新出现的问题。
