The Uganda Prisons Services has recorded its first coronavirus case in Kayiti prison, Namutumba district.

Addressing a daily security briefing at Uganda Media Centre in Kampala, Frank Baine, the spokesperson of Prisons said that the case is a suspect who had previously had contact with a person who tested positive of the virus.

Baine said that although the patient had been kept in isolation since he was taken into prison, they have decided to isolate the entire Kayiti prison allowing neither the staff nor the prisoners to leave.

Baine said that because of this development, they have reopened Busesa prisons in Bugweri district to resume as an isolation centre for all the new prisoners in the areas of Busoga. All the prisoners in Busesa have been shifted to other prisons in eastern Uganda after completing the mandatory 14-days quarantine period.

For prisoners in the Kampala Metropolitan Area, Baine said that new isolation centres for fresh prisoners have been opened up at Kasangati and Kawuga in Wakiso and Mukono districts respectively. This he said was occasioned by filling of Kitalya prisons which currently houses 3,000 male prisoners arrested during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Uganda prisons hold more than 60,000 inmates all over the country.

Credit: URN