Uttar Pradesh: 127 Jhansi jail inmates test positive for Covid

JHANSI/LUCKNOW: As many as 70 inmates of Jhansi district jail were found Covid-19 positive during a rapid antigen test conducted on Thursday. This took the total number of positive cases in the jail to 127 in the past one week. Seven of them have been discharged.
Two inmates were tested through RTPCR test earlier in the week and admitted to a local hospital while the remaining are asymptomatic. A barrack in the jail has been converted into an L1 hospital and all of them have been isolated there.
With Jhansi's tally, the number of jail inmates testing positive for Covid-19 climbed to 207 in the state. Earlier, 28 were found in Ballia district jail, 17 in Sonabhadra jail, three each in Ghaziabad and GB Nagar, and two each in Mau and Lucknow. In May, 12 inmates had tested positive in Agra central Jail following which the state government had ordered mass testing of inmates in all the 71 prisons in the state housing 1,04,508 inmates.
Besides, 21 jail officials, too, have been found infected with the Covid-19 virus. It includes recently tested eight prison officials in Sonbhadra jail while two in Jhansi.
Covid claws turn jail into quarantine hub
Large number of cases found in Jhansi jail has forced the prisons administration to start random sampling on a wide scale.
In Jhansi, 751 out of 1,090 inmates have been tested so far while further tests were under progress. DIG Prison, Kanpur range, VP Tripathi visited the district jail on Thursday and gave necessary instructions related to Covid-19 precautions.
Jhansi DM Andra Vamsi said that the administration had decided to test all the inmates after one of them tested positive over a week ago after he had fallen sick and was shifted to district hospital. Seeing the number of patients, DM along with SSP Jhansi, D Pradeep Kumar also visited the jail and ordered the conversion of one of the barracks inside the jail into an L1hospital equipped with oxygen and medical team.
On the other hand, jail Superintendent Rajiv Shukla said that only two inmates were admitted to hospital while rest of them were in quarantine in the jail itself. He also said that as a precautionary measure a school in the city has been converted into a temporary jail where the new inmates were being kept till the time their Covid test is done with a confirmed negative report.
Apart from this, a Covid help desk has also been set up outside the main gate of the district jail where proper scanning was being done of each and every person before giving entry inside the premises. “It seems that the inmates have got infected through any of the police personnel on duty,” Shukla said.
Senior prison officials blamed the districts for not having made temporary jails for keeping undertrials who interact outside and catch the virus.
A senior jail officer said that there was no temporary jail in both Mau and Jhansi. “Virus spread as prisoners go outside to court or hospitals and when they return, they interact with other inmates and spread virus,” they said.
DG Prisons, Anand Kumar, told TOI that random sampling which started in May had increased manifolds. He also said that most of the patients were asymptomatic and all precautions were being taken to ensure that they remained quarantined and also to take proper dosage of medicines and food.