Fifty-seven more cases of COVID-19 have been reported from the central jail in Thiruvananthapuram’s Poojappura on Thursday. This is in addition to the 59 cases reported from the jail a day earlier. In all, there are now 116 cases in the jail. A cluster development is feared to have developed in the facility.
District Collector Navjot Khosa released the data on Thursday evening.
Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services Rishiraj Singh reportedly said that the jail headquarters will be closed for three days as instructed by the health department. The decision comes after two prisoners who came for sanitation work at the headquarters began showing COVID-19 symptoms.
The testing of the inmates in Poojappura jail began after an aged prisoner was confirmed to have COVID-19 on Tuesday. This was followed by a rapid antigen test of 107 prisoners on Wednesday out of which 59 had tested positive. It is not clear how the inmates contracted the virus, Deputy Inspector General of Prisons Santhosh earlier told TNM.
The only visit the prisoners took out in recent days had been to hospitals.
Inmates who are under remand as well as those convicted were among those who tested positive. They will be isolated within the prison and also treated there, since all of them who tested on Wednesday were asymptomatic.
However, a special ward will be set up in the prison for the patients, said Thiruvananthapuram District Medical Officer Dr KS Shinu.
In all, there are 970 prisoners in Poojappura jail and all of them will be subjected to antigen tests.
Thiruvananthapuram continues to be the worst affected district as far as COVID-19 cases are concerned. On Thursday, 434 new cases were reported from the capital district.
There are, as of Thursday evening, 3,347 active cases in Thiruvananthapuram.
The state has 13,839 active cases of COVID-19 now with 1,564 more new cases being reported on Thursday. That is so far the highest number of cases reported on a single day in Kerala.
There are, however, a number of recoveries also reported on a daily basis, with 766 people testing negative on Thursday as well. So far, Kerala has reported 25,688 recoveries. There have been 130 deaths of COVID-19 patients in the state.