At least 25 remand prisoners, lodged in Perurani District Jail in Thoothukudi district, have tested positive for COVID-19. While the infected inmates, mostly asymptomatic, have been shifted to a government facility, other prisoners have been quarantined at the same jail. Prison authorities have launched intensive sanitising work in coordination with health officials.
According to sources at the prison headquarters here, two suspects arrested on charges of harassing women and children, were lodged at the Perurani district jail on July 2. A couple of weeks later, the duo was produced at the Government Hospital for a potency test. It was found during this test that they were positive for COVID-19.
When inmates and prison staff who were in contact with the infected persons were tested, seven of them, including two prisoners, were found to be positive. The Thoothukudi Principal District & Sessions Judge visited the jail last week and ordered that COVID-19 tests be conducted on all the 59 remand prisoners and 28 prison staff, sources said.
Many test positive
Test results on Monday evening confirmed that of the 59 inmates, 21 were positive for COVID-19. Two of the 28 prison officials also tested positive. “None of them had any symptoms of fever, cough or breathlessness...they are all asymptomatic. They have been shifted to the Government Hospital for treatment,” a prison official told The Hindu on Tuesday.
As a Standard Operating Procedure, Director-General of Police, Department of Prisons and Correctional Services, Sunil Kumar Singh, said all remand prisoners were being subjected to COVID-19 testing. However, they were being lodged in prisons even while waiting for the test results that take a day or two. As a safety measure, all new inmates were being lodged in sub-jails for at least 14 days before being brought to central prisons, he said.
The Perurani cluster has surfaced almost a couple of months after a COVID-19 breakout at the Puzhal Central Prison in Chennai. Almost all the prisoners here have recovered from the infection.
