Since the beginning of March 2020, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has been the cause of millions of deaths worldwide. The need to better define the pathogenesis of coronavirus disease 19 (Covid-19) as well as to provide the correct statistical records concerning deaths related to this virus, inevitably involves the role of forensic pathology and routine autopsy practice. Currently, some data on macroscopic and microscopic features in autopsies performed in suspected Covid-19 cases are reported in the literature. The persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in cadavers has not yet been elucidated and only a few reports have emphasized the importance of evaluating the Virus RNA in post-mortem tissues. In this preliminary study, we observed that SARS-CoV-2 survives in multiple cadaver tissues many days after death despite some extreme conditions of post-mortem body preservation. The results of this on-going analysis could help improve the safety of working practices for pathologists as well as understanding the possible interaction between microbiological agents and the cadaver tissue’s supravital reactions.

自 2020 年 3 月开始，严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒 2 (SARS-CoV-2) 大流行已导致全球数百万人死亡。需要更好地定义冠状病毒病 19 (Covid-19) 的发病机制以及提供有关与该病毒相关的死亡的正确统计记录，不可避免地涉及法医病理学和常规尸检实践的作用。目前，文献中报道了一些关于疑似 Covid-19 病例尸体解剖的宏观和微观特征的数据。尚未阐明 SARS-CoV-2 在尸体中的持久性，只有少数报告强调了评估死后组织中病毒 RNA 的重要性。在这项初步研究中，我们观察到 SARS-CoV-2 在死后很多天仍能在多个尸体组织中存活，尽管有一些死后尸体保存的极端条件。这一持续分析的结果有助于提高病理学家工作实践的安全性，并有助于了解微生物制剂与尸体组织的超生反应之间可能存在的相互作用。