Guidelines for conducting medico legal autopsy during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

With increasing no. of COVID-19 Cases worldwide and flood of articles on various related and emerging issues there is need to summarize and enable better interpretation of various guidelines for medico-legal autopsies. The following article is such an attempt with description of what is known currently about the virus, the COVID Disease symptomatology, its infectivity, testing strategy for early detection and spread control, diagnostic criteria, its lethality, standard precautions required, autopsy procedure and protocols for handling dead body after postmortem examination and notification of death cases during a pandemic etc.