Source – gulfnews.com
Patna: The increasing cases of Aida among prisoners lodged in Bihar jails have alarmed the state administration. So far, 89 prisoners out of 4,000 inmates who underwent medical examination have been found suffering from Aids whereas the medical examination of remaining 34,000 prisoners lodged in jails are still under process.
Jail authorities are apprehensive of the fact that the number of such prisoners could go up alarmingly if the entire lot of 38,000 prisoners lodged in 59 jails were completed given the prevailing rate. The number of prisoners currently detected by AIDS is about 2 per cent of 4,000 inmates who were medically examined so far, officials said.
“The figures of inmates suffering from this deadly disease are indeed alarming. We have already chalked out a plan to create massive awareness drive about this disease among the prisoners,” Bihar’s inspector general of prisons Mithilesh Mishra told the media on Monday.
Mishra said the authorities would organise awareness camps among all the jails on December 1 to make them aware how they could protect themselves from this disease.
He added that the jail administration would intensify the medical tests from the very next month and would also initiate quite few more steps for better health care of the inmates.
According to officials, one of the major reasons behind the spread of the disease is the inmates’ addiction for drugs. “A good number of inmates lodged in jails are drug addicts. They may have taken drugs through infected syringes unaware of their serious consequences, before being sent to jail,” a senior jail official said preferring anonymity.
According to an official report, the number of HIV cases have grown alarmingly in the state in the past few years. The latest report of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) says of the total number of estimated 2.14 million HIV cases in India, Bihar has roughly 115,000 people living with this disease.