An inmate of the Agra Central Jail has tested positive for COVID-19 despite having no contact with visitors or outsiders for the last one and a half months.
On the advice of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the district, his sample has been sent for a recheck.
The RT-PCR test of the inmate, a murder convict from Jhansi, was found COVID-19 positive during his stay in the S.N. Medical College, an official said. The test result came on Wednesday evening.
The prisoner was taken to the hospital on May 3 following high blood pressure and brain stroke, the Agra Central Jail Senior Superintendent informed the Uttar Pradesh Director General, Prisons Department.
He was shifted to the Agra jail from the Jhansi district jail upon his conviction in a 2014 murder case on December 14, 2019.
The Agra Jail Senior Superintendent, in a letter to the Director General, said there was no record of any suspected COVID-19 cases in the jail in the last 1.5 months. Moreover, the inmate concerne neither met any outsider during the period nor was he taken to any outside hospital for treatment.
The mulakat (meeting with visitors) of the jail inmates has been prohibited much before since March 20.
“On the basis of the above facts, the CMO Agra has advised that a PCR [resampling] test of the inmate be conducted,” said the Jail Superintendent.
Fourteen prisoners who were in touch with him have been put under quarantine in a ward, while the CMO has been asked to get COVID-19 tests done on the security guards, jail warders and staff who served in the ward.