COVID-19: All burials to be done in 24 hours

Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Reporter

ALL burials will now be done within 24 hours of death as the government puts up precautionary measures against COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic.

This was revealed in a memorandum from Nyaradzo funeral services to its employees. According to the circular the new burial regulations came about after a meeting between funeral service providers as represented by the Zimbabwe Association of Funeral Assurers and the Ministry of Health and Child Care.

Among the many regulations that have been put in place, funeral service providers will now have to get clearance from a health practitioner before they attend to a body.

“All bodies are to be treated as COVID-19 contaminated except road traffic accidents and homicide which may be treated as special cases. As such we must strictly adhere to personal protective equipment guidelines.

“No removals are to be done from home or any other place until there is an opinion on the cause of death by a medical practitioner. This therefore means we must notify health officials before doing any removal from home. The police have been informed of this position as they are the custodian of all sudden death bodies,” reads the memorandum.

Further to this it was also agreed that all COVID-19 deaths are to be state supervised burials, while all other burials are now expected to be held within 24-hours of death.

“All burials should be done within 24-hours and encouragement should be done for local burials to limit distance travelled.

“The bus for mourners is suspended with immediate effect in line with the government position on health and safety measures especially the social distance concept,” reads the memorandum.-@vusadb