Contributions of pediatrics in identification of disaster victims

Abstract

Introduction: All kinds of disasters have taken place in the world in last years. The challenge of dealing with disasters is not only the concern of disaster planners, but also of health professionals and the health system as a whole, paediatricians and forensic pathologists included.Objective: To analyze the difficulties of application of both the positive and the presumptive criteria in the disaster identification of minor’s deaths and the possible collaboration between both specialties.Conclusions: In a disaster with minor’s deaths, the difficulties in the application of disaster identification items affect mainly to minors who are not adolescents. Although the role of pediatrics and paediatricians is the healthcare of minors, it is advisable to have the pediatrician’s collaboration in the retrieval and gathering of the medical antemortem data.