As many as 33 prisoners and 10 jail staffs, including a Jailer, of the Brahmapur Circle Jail have tested positive for the Covid-19.
Following detection, the prisoners have been kept under isolation in the jail campus and the 10 sent to home quarantine. All of them have been advised to get admitted to Covid Hospital if they develop any symptom of corona infection.
The Ganjam CDMO has assured the Jail Superintendent to send doctors to the jail for health checkup of quarantined inmates.
Sources said swab samples of 50 prisoners and 92 jail staffs had been sent for test on July 19. Of them, reports of 33 prisoners and 10 jail staff came positive and all are asymptomatic.
Earlier, 20 prisoners and two staff of the jail had tested positive for the virus. The first case from the jail was reported on June 6.
Meanwhile, reports said relatives of a dead elderly woman and villagers in Jakarapalli village under Kukudakhandi block in Ganjam district refused to carry her body to a crematorium in fear of getting infected with the virus.
The body of G Budiamma (75), who died on Monday midnight, lay in her house for a few hours. With the help of some Biju Yuva Vahini voluneers, the local Sarpanch took the woman’s body to the crematorium and performed the last rites.
This is not the first case. A few days back, a young businessman, who died after suffering from fever, was carried on a trolley rickshaw to crematorium in Buguda NAC area in fthe district. The youth’s relatives refused to attend lend shoulder to carry his body to the crematorium.
On Wednesday, the district registered the single-day highest spike of 371 Covid positive cases, taking the total count to 6,362. The district also reported three Covid deaths, taking the total toll to 62.
So far, 4008 infected persons have recovered in the district. Now 2,287 patients are undergoing treatment at different Covid hospitals.