07 October,2009 02:04 PM IST | | Vivek Sabnis
A survey conducted by the State Prison authorities and the AIDS Society and National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) in July has revealed that the nine central jails in the state have 142 inmates who are HIV positive. Yerawada Central Prison has the highest number of infected prisoners, which is 34, followed by Nashik and Thane 32 and 29 respectively.
After the death of Ramdas Ubale (35) suspected to be an HIV patient and serving life imprisonment in Yerawada Prison on March 24, Chief Justice S C Dharmadhikari ordered the report in July, including details of treatment available, medical centres, hospital facilities and presence of trained doctors.
Immediate funds
IG Uddhav Kamble, State Prisons, said, "We are creating awareness for the prison medical staff. The state government immediately granted Rs 10 lakh to procure the required materials," he said.
Kamble added that HIV tests are not mandatory in the nine state prisons, but they have appointed councillors.
In addition, an Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) has been made available to the HIV positive patients.
Training staff
"So far, 30 medical officers and surgeons, and 70 para-medical staff have been trained," said Kamble.
Four deaths have been reported in state prisons since 2005 and fortunately none of them were reported HIV positive in the postmortem reports. "According to Ubale's postmortem report, he death occurred due to Tuberculosis," he said.
