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Case Reports
. 2021 Feb 19:8:612758.
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2021.612758. eCollection 2021.

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

Milenko Bogdanović  1 , Ivan Skadrić  1 , Tatjana Atanasijević  1 , Oliver Stojković  1   2 , Vesna Popović  1 , Slobodan Savić  1 , Zoran Mihailović  1 , Bojana Radnić  1 , Tijana Aćimović  1 , Irina Damjanjuk  1 , Sanja Despotović  3 , Aleksandra Barać  4   5
Affiliations
Case Reports

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

Milenko Bogdanović et al. Front Med (Lausanne). .

Abstract

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.

Keywords: COVID-19; Europe (central); SARS-CoV-2; autopsy; vitreous humor.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Representative lung sections showing diffuse alveolar damage (DAD): (A) DAD with associated pneumonia. Intraalveolar protein-rich edema and inflammatory cells in the alveolar lumen and interstitium. (B) Hyaline membranes (arrows) with widening of the alveolar septae. (C) Alveolar protein-rich edema. Mixed inflammatory infiltrate with predominance of macrophages. Scattered granulocytes can be observed. Megakaryocyte in the capillary (arrow). Hyaline microthrombus (asterisk). (D) Hyaline membranes (arrows), light interstitial fibrosis, and proliferation of type 2 pneumocytes. (E) Abundant macrophages in the interstitium and lumen of the alveoli (immunohistochemical staining with CD68 antibody) and (F) scattered T-lymphocytes (staining with CD3 antibody). *Microphotographs were taken using the Leica DM4000 B LED light microscope (Leica, Wetzlar, Germany) and Leica DFC295 digital camera (Leica, Heerbrugg, Switzerland).
Figure 2
Figure 2
IP2 and IP4 PCR products on 2% agarose gel.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Readable sequence of IP4 amplicon without primer binding sites.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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