Footage from inside Qom’s Behesht-e Masoumeh morgue in Iran shows dozens of bodies sheathed in black bags lining the floor, while workers in protective suits and masks busily walk among them.
It’s unclear which, if any, of the people whose bodies lie in the morgue were infected with the coronavirus gripping the Middle Eastern country.
And herein lies a huge problem for Iran, one of the worst-hit countries outside China.
Medical precautions clash with tradition: Under Islamic tradition in Iran, corpses are typically washed with soap and water before burial.
But two medical workers in Qom told CNN that in some cases precautions related to the outbreak are preventing staff from observing traditional Islamic guidelines for burial.
Instead, patients’ bodies are being treated with calcium oxide to prevent them from contaminating the soil once buried in cemeteries, they said.
Bodies are piling up: Testing for the virus takes time, delaying burials and creating a “pile up” of bodies at the morgue, said Behesht-e Masoumeh morgue director, Ali Ramezani, in a report on Iranian state TV, IRIB.
The apparent backlog of bodies for burial comes as Iran grapples with a rapid rise in coronavirus cases.
The country had 591 new positive cases recorded since Wednesday, the country’s health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour said Thursday.
He added that 739 people have also recovered from the virus and left hospital.
All of Iran’s 31 provinces have been hit with the virus, the health ministry announced Thursday.
The capital Tehran has the highest number at 1,523, while the city of Qom, the reported epicenter of Iran’s epidemic, had 386 confirmed cases.
Iran, along with Italy, has the highest recorded number of deaths from the virus outside of China, at 107.
