Case Report: Post-mortem Histopathological and Molecular Analyses of the Very First Documented COVID-19-Related Death in Europe

Frontiers in Medicine

Aleksandra Barać¹  Milenko Bogdanović²  Ivan Skadrić²  Tatjana Atanasijević²  Slobodan Savić²  Tijana Aćimović²  Zoran Mihailović²  Vesna Popović²  Bojana Radnić²  Irina Damjanjuk²  Oliver Stojković³  Sanja Despotović⁴ 

[1] Clinic for Infectious and Tropical Diseases, Clinical Centre of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia;Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia;Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Forensic Medicine “Milovan Milovanović”, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia;Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Forensic Medicine “Milovan Milovanović”, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia;Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Human Genetics, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia;Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Histology and Embryology, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia;

关键词: COVID-19;    SARS-CoV-2;    vitreous humor;    autopsy;    Europe (central);   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmed.2021.612758

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In Europe, the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the first COVID-19-related death were reported in France on January 24th and February 15th, 2020, respectively. Officially, the first case of COVID-19 infection in the Republic of Serbia was registered on March 6th. Herein, we presented the first case of retrospective detection of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the post-mortem-obtained vitreous humor (VH), which took place on February 5th, 2020. This is the first death in Europe proven to be caused by COVID-19 by means of post-mortem histopathological and molecular analyses. Based on this finding, it appears that SARS-CoV-2 has been spreading faster and started spreading much earlier than it had been considered and that COVID-19 was probably the cause of the much-reported pneumonia of unknown origin in January and February 2020.

【 授权许可】

CC BY