Tura, July 9: After the sudden outbreak of Covid-19 infections in Nongpoh jail of Ri-Bhoi district, the virus has now surfaced in Tura district jail where 14 prison inmates have tested positive on Thursday.
West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner (DC), Ram Singh informed that the detections were made during random testing of prisoners and jail staff as part of measures to check for Covid to prevent any possible outbreak of mass infections. The recent Ri-bhoi outbreak had been keeping authorities on alert.
“We conducted RTPCR tests on the inmates and found 14 of them positive. Only 4 of them showed symptoms while the rest were asymptomatic,” the DC said.
Those found infected will be put into a separate quarantine area within the jail, Singh added.
As per information on the population of inmates, the DC said there are more than 200 prisoners in the Tura district jail.
However, a relief for authorities is that almost all prisoners and staff of the prison have been given the 1st dosage of the Covid vaccine. A handful of prisoners, numbering less than half a dozen, could not be administered the vaccine for having Underlying problems.
“In fact, we moved for mass vaccination of the prisoners and jail staff at a quick pace after another group of elderly inmates from another institution came in for the infections. Both were supposed to be vaccinated at the same time, but due to the outbreak over there, we moved ahead with the vaccination of the jail inmates,” Singh informed.
The Ri-bhoi outbreak in prison was an eye opener and the district authorities in Tura decided to go for mass testing of the prisoners to stop any possible outbreak among the large group of prisoners which would have complicated matters and required widespread isolation of the many patients.
