Sahranpur; Twenty three prisoners including a woman were found HIV positive in Saharanpur Jail. This has been confirmed by the state health department. The state health department was worried about the source of the disease and send a report to the state government too.
As most of the HIV positive prisoners were from Behat, Gangoh, Nakud and Deoband of Uttar Pradesh, the department is now collecting their history. The Jail administration has also sent a letter to ART centre for the treatment of these prisoners.
The incident came to the fore after Saharanpur district jail organised a week long health camp on June 15. Besides prescribing medicines the administration also collected blood samples of 2200 prisoners of which these 23 prisoners were found HIV positive. Incidentally the prison has a capacity of only 523 inmates but it has been overcrowded because of space crunch.
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"Among the HIV positive six are new but the rest are old prisoners- most of them arrested in drug case. We are trying to find the sources," Jail Superitendent of Saharanpur Jail Anita Dubey said.
"Health camps were organised in the jail twice in last five months. As some of the inmates were diagnosed with TB so we conducted their HIV test too and we came to know about the HIV positive patients. Now we have sent the report to the Jail Administration and state government too," Dr Randheer Singh, Nodal Officer of Health department said.
