As Liberian hospital morgues face overflow issues, an active attempt to establish burial sites in the surrounding areas is being made by the health ministry. Liberian citizens, however, are far from receptive of having land near their villages be used as burial sites, for fear of infection from the deadly virus.

The West African Ebola outbreak has already claimed the lives of over 700 individuals in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. With a fatality rate of 90 percent, the postmortem survival period of the virus is still unknown, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As a result, the prospect of appropriately putting to rest the corpses of the deceased has become a long-standing issue.

“The virus has an incubation period of a few days to three weeks. Unlike most pathogens, which cannot survive long on a corpse, however, Ebola does remain infectious after a person dies—for how long remains unknown. WHO notes that men who have survived the disease can still transmit the virus through their semen for up to seven weeks after recovery, providing a glimpse into the longevity of this potent pathogen,” said Dina Maron in a report for the Scientific American.

The mysterious nature of the disease and the added mistrust of Western healthcare workers by the local population has exacerbated the difficulty of coping with the outbreak. Part of the difficulty has been with approaching the families of the deceased about modifications to traditional burial rituals for added safety measures to contain the disease.

Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids of the infected individuals, even after their death. Traditional burial methods involve washing the dead bodies, which risks the spread of infection unless disinfectant is used to minimize risk. The Red Cross has found some success in Sierra Leone with contacting families of the deceased and having them disinfect everything during the process.

Liberian citizens have been plagued with the fear of spread and have not been as welcoming to the burial of the deceased. As a result, the Liberian government is looking into assigning burial grounds specifically for the Ebola deceased.

Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf also announced that she was considering the mandatory cremation of Ebola victims to prevent any tampering with the corpses and contamination of water sources. Nigeria categorically proceeded with the cremation of the only infected man to die of the disease in an attempt to keep the virus at bay.