KOLLAM: As many as 57 inmates of the Kollam district jail tested positive for Covid-19 over the past two days, upsetting the government’s efforts in preventing the virus from spreading among prisoners. Kerala had won praise at the national level for its system of screening remand prisoners at Covid first-line treatment centres (CFLTCs) and isolating them if found positive.
Swab samples of 15 inmates were tested after they showed mild symptoms and the results of 13 came positive on Saturday night. Following that, the health department did antigen tests on the remaining 132 inmates as well. The results, which came on Sunday evening, showed that 57 were infected.
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As many as 69 new cases were reported in Kollam district on Sunday, with 51 of them getting infected through local transmission. A total of 1,169 new patients were added to the list of active cases in the state on Sunday, taking the number to 11,342. Of the newly infected, 991 contracted the virus through local transmission. The contact cases reported on Sunday is the second-highest, after 1,162 on July 31.
A police officer from Thiruvananthapuram, who had visited the Kollam district jail, tested positive last week. The Health Department suspects him to have transmitted the virus to the inmates.
“We did antigen tests on the inmates of the district jail and as many as 57 at the jail were found positive in the last two days,” Kollam Deputy DMO R Sandhya told TNIE.
Though the jail was converted into a CFLTC, 54 patients were shifted to another centre and three to the Medical College Hospital. A health officer said the patients will be added to the state’s list on Monday as the results had come on Sunday evening.