Postmortem diagnosis characteristics of probable covid-19 victims by rapid molecular testing

The capacity to establish the diagnosis among probable COVID 19 cases is limited, moreover, in death cases. Rapid molecular test (RMT) could be an alternative for establishing the definitive diagnosis in mortality cases, furthermore, management of bodies can be carried out in hospitals so as not to pollute the environment. The study was conducted in 6 hospitals and 10 primary health care centers in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara from March 25 th to August 5 th , 2020. Nasopharyngeal swab post-mortem was done between 1-12 hours post-somatic dead in patients who were diagnosed with probable COVID-19. RMT was performed by GeneXpert Cepheid with cartridge Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2. The identification procedure was done by following the guideline in the manual procedure of the cartridge. The result of RMT will be positive or negative depending on the View Results Window of the GeneXpert System. There were 33 post-mortems nasopharyngeal swab samples that fulfill the criteria in the study period. Thirteen (39,39%) were positive for SARS-Cov-2. Most of the positive sample was taken 1-4 hours after somatic death, followed by 8-12 hours after somatic death consecutively 11 (84,61%) and 2 (15,38%). Among the positive cases, most of them were female, the age more than 60 years old, and owing to hypertension and cardiovascular disease as a comorbid sequentially 8 (61,53%), 8 (61,53%), and 5 (38,46%). RMT could be used as an alternative to identify the SARS-CoV-2 genetic material in the somatic dead patient until 12 hours post-mortem, however, the best time for taking a swab sample should be 1-4 hours post-mortem.