Infectious diseases in prisons: Health department proposes setting up monitoring committee

Committee to meet monthly to review situation, devise ways to minimise infections

PESHAWAR: After the shocking revelations that 19 inmates at a Swabi prison had tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) health department has suggested a screening of all inmates at the prison apart from those employed inside prisons across the province.

Officials privy to the matter told The Express Tribune that overcrowding at the prison was common. Coupled with lengthy internment sentences of prisoners, were termed as the reason for the large number of HIV and Hepatitis-C increased.

“The central prison in Peshawar, where you have the capacity for around 450 prisoners, but more than 2,100 are imprisoned including women,” a senior official told The Express Tribune as he went on to ask, “how do you accommodate so many people.”



The health department, according to the official, had told the home department to form a small committee which is headed by the home secretary and comprises the health director general, the inspector general of prisons, Hepatitis and HIV/AIDS control programme in-charge and its members.

The committee, according to the officials, was recommended to hold monthly meetings to review the situation and deliberate on how to establish [and subsequently monitor] measures to stop the spread of viral infections across priority prisons, specifically amongst women and juveniles.

In overcrowded prisons, drugs offer escape and infection

A recent report regarding the Swabi prison had indicated that the facility could accommodate only 130 inmates. However, as many as 640 were currently being housed there, or around five times its capacity, which could lead to the spread of contagious and communicable diseases amongst them which would not only endanger their families and other people who visit the prisoners, including staff.



“Around 610 inmates in Swabi were screened by for Hepatitis-C and HIV, where 35 tested positive for Hepatitis-C while 19 for HIV/AIDs,” a senior official said while quoting parts of the report adding that the shocking revelation of the cases had necessitated the need for immediate measures by the concerned authorities.

The official also shared that 220 out of 640 inmates were drug addicts with a vast majority, or around 190 out of the 220, resorting to the use of injectable drugs.

Most of those who had tested positive for Hepatitis-C and for HIV, officials claimed, were injectable drug users.

Officials from the prison department added that seeing lab results of samples collected from only one prison came as a shock since it brought down the prevailing belief that there were just five confirmed infections in prisons across the province.



“It means that there are a large number of silent cases which could pose a serious threat [to the health of those associated with prisons],” the official said as he requested anonymity since he was not authorised to speak to the media.

According to a United Nations (UN) policy brief on HIV prevention, treatment and care in prisons and other closed settings, prevalence is far higher than in general population.

The UN brief said that globally, the prevalence of HIV, sexually transmitted infections, hepatitis B and C and tuberculosis in prison populations is two to 10 times as high and in some cases may be up to 50 times as high, as in the general population.

Risks of having HIV infected inmates infect other prisoners or even those working in prisons besides their [inmates’ as well as workers’] families and the entire community also poses a threat.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th, 2018.