By Makur Adut

Lakes State Ministry of Health has confirmed 24 cases of measles among the inmates in Rumbek prison.

Maker Malok Chieny, the Director General in the State Ministry of Health, confirmed the infections on Monday.

“Among the inmates of about 738 in the prison, we have seen new cases of measles infection, where we recorded 24 prisoners who are infected with measles cases, including two old men who are severely infected,” he said.

“We intervened with the World Health Organization ( WHO) to give them calamine lotion to treat their skin, and also they are given painkillers like paracetamol among others at least to reduce the kind of fever that they have gone through in these 5 days in the prison.”

The ministry praised the health personnel in Rumbek prison who acted quickly and reported the disease outbreak.

Malok warned that the disease would affect the whole prison if the outbreak is not contained.

“So, we are very much concerned and will try to control any condition that comes up within the population of inmates in the prison,” he said.

“I asked before about the isolation unit in the State prison, and what they do is just separation of cases.”

However, Malok highlighted the need to decongest the prison, saying some inmates have severe cases and they had already been fined.

“They put people according to the categories, and these categories do not allow them to keep the cases of an outbreak separately, like tuberculosis, measles cases, or any other disease in the prison to be separated.”

He said the place is small and they don’t have more rooms so if they use one room for emergency cases the other people may lack space.

However, the administration of the prison cited a lack of space to isolate the patients.

“So people are being kept there all night, and you have never experienced this virus before when you were a child. You are now at risk of contracting this disease,” Malok said.

He also noted that those who are mentally ill in prison are supposed to be isolated from the rest.