Lucknow: If the number of HIV cases being reported from Uttar Pradesh jails is any indication, then prisons are becoming increasingly susceptible to the virus.
In the past one month, 26 prisoners have been found to be HIV positive in the Barabanki jail.
The state’s Health Department has written a letter to the jail administration asking these infected prisoners to get treatment from the ART Centre in Lucknow.
Soon the Department is going to set up another camp in the jail in which women prisoners will be examined.
District Tuberculosis Officer Vinod Kumar Dohre said that the annual TB and HIV test among the inmates, held during three camps in the jail, showed the results.
In June, as many as six inmates of Gonda district jail had tested positive for HIV.
The confirmation came during a random blood sampling of inmates after an undertrial tested positive in the jail.
The prison has over 1,000 inmates.
Jail superintendent, Deepankar Kumar, confirmed the development and added that a medical camp has been organised inside the premises.
“We have decided to first separate all the affected patients with the virus and send them to the district hospital to get their other tests also done,” said the officer.
As per standard operating procedure, their barrack will be shifted. The in-house doctor has been apprised and directed to keep a check on their health.
In the Saharanpur Jail, 23 inmates were detected to be HIV positive in July.
The matter came to the fore when a health check-up camp was conducted by the Health Department in Saharanpur Jail.
The blood samples of the inmates, who were detected to be infected with TB, were collected for the test of HIV too and of them, 23 were detected to be HIV positive. One of them is a female inmate.
A senior health official who spoke to IANS on condition of anonymity, said that overcrowding in jails should be a cause for concern.
“In this situation, unprotected sex cannot be ruled out and this apparently had led to the HIV spread,” he pointed out.
