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By Mulengera Reporter
All the 199 inmates and 24 staff at Kawuti Prison in the Eastern Uganda District of Namutumba have been put under institutional quarantine after a suspect who was due to be released on bond tested positive for the deadly Covid disease.
According to Uganda Prisons Service Spokesperson Frank Baine, the suspect, who had been arrested on Lake Victoria, was a contact of a previously confirmed case. The inmate has now been admitted at Jinja Hospital.
“I am here to inform the nation that on Monday, there is a suspect who was in isolation centre in Kawuti Prison, Namutumba District, Eastern Uganda and by the time of close of business on Monday, results came and found that he was positive [for Covid19]. He was a suspected arrested on Lake Victoria, tested and eventually became positive as a contact of a person who had been tested positive earlier,” Baine told reporters on Wednesday.
“Fortunately he was in isolation and at the same time his people had secured his release from prison but because of what was going on, we were not able to hand him over to his relatives but to the Ministry of Health and right now he is being [treated] in Jinja.”
Prisons authorities have “totally closed” off the facility to members of the general public and put all inmates and staff under quarantine until the Ministry of health (MoH) has confirmed their Covid statuses.
Uganda currently has 665 Covid19 cases. Some 119 of these have recovered while no Coronavirus-related case has been registered, according to the latest figures released by Dr Henry Mwebesa, the Director General of Health Services at MoH.
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