Kerala prisons grapple with coronavirus outbreak as over 200 test positive in last three days

Prisons in Kerala that were earlier in the news for joining the fight against Covid-19 by making masks and sanitizers are now grappling with the outbreak of the virus.

Around 200 prisoners of the Central Prison in Thiruvananthapuram were tested Covid-19 positive in the last three days. A doctor and a couple of prison officials have also tested positive for coronavirus. An inmate of the women's prison in Thiruvananthapuram has also tested Covid-19 positive. Coronavirus tests are being conducted on all inmates of the prison.

Earlier 66 prisoners of Kollam district prison and 42 people who were taken to various prisons across the state were found Covid-19 positive.

Shifting of the infected prisoners to Covid-19 hospitals involved security risk and hence the prisoners are now being treated in the prison hospitals itself. Most of the infected patients are asymptomatic.

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DIG S Santosh said that the outbreak of infection at the Central prison could be mainly caused by the hospital visit of prisoners. On average at least 20 prisoners were being taken to various government hospitals daily as part of routine treatments. There are around 1,000 inmates in Central prison now, of which Covid-19 tests have been conducted so far on around half of them only, and hence the number of positive cases might go up in the coming days.

As soon as the Covid-19 outbreak started in Kerala, steps like allowing parole and interim bail to more prisoners were initiated to reduce the congestion in prions. As a result, the total number of prisoners across the state reduced to around 4,500 from 8,000, said Gopakumar.

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At a time when the state was facing an acute shortage of masks and sanitizers, the prisons chipped in and initiated mask and sanitizer productions. Around 10 lakh masks and 20,000 liter of sanitizers have been produced so far, said the DIG.