Even as Prison authorities did their best to take preventive measures after the first inmate was reported coronavirus positive in Jhansi district jail in the last week of April, a fresh sample test of inmates carried out recently showed 120 of them to be positive.
Subsequently, prison officials quarantined the other prisoners in separate barracks and converted one of the barracks as a Level-1 Covid hospital to provide medical care to the afflicted inmates.
Officials also carried out sanitisation of the entire prison and were awaiting further directions from officials in Lucknow on other measures to be undertaken to check coronavirus spread.
On Thursday morning, the test reports of 120 inmates turned out to be positive. These inmates were immediately shifted to the makeshift hospital on the prison campus.
A team of health officials also visited the jail hospital to facilitate check-up and carry out complete sanitisation.
DIG (Jails) Ved Prakash Tripathi also rushed to Jhansi from Lucknow to supervise the preventive steps undertaken and the treatment of the afflicted inmates.
District Magistrate of Jhansi, Aandra Wamsi, told media persons that a total of 350 inmates were tested for coronavirus, out of which 127 were found to be positive but in the second test, seven of them turned out to be negative.
He said that all necessary steps were taken for isolation and treatment of these 120 inmates.
“Additional number of doctors have been deployed for treatment of the inmates. Interestingly, all these inmates who tested coronavirus positive were asymptomatic,” the district magistrate said.