Over 200 inmates and nine warders have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Karachi Central Jail on Tuesday, it has been learnt. Inspector General of Police (Prisons) Nusrat Mangan has confirmed that over 200 prisoner and nine jail officials, including DSP Jan Muhammad, were diagnosed with COVID-19 at the Karachi jail. He maintained that the COVID-19 positive prisoners have been isolated and kept in quarantine. The police officer said that there were over 3,500 prisoners at the Karachi Central Jail and added that half of them have been screened for the virus. Mangan said that all the prisoners and the jail staff will be tested for the virus. Earlier on April 19, as many as 94 inmates had been tested positive for the novel coronavirus in eight different jails of Punjab. According to the jail authorities, of the total, 59 prisoners had been diagnosed with the COVID-19 at Lahore’s Camp Jail, 14 at Sialkot jail, 7 at Gujranwala, 9 at Dera Ghazi Khan, two at Bhakkar jail and one each from Faisalabad, Kasur, Hafizabad prisons. The authorities had said that test reports of 438 of the 527 prisoners tested in Lahore’s Camp jail had been received, adding that of them, 59 tested positive for the virus and 379 negative.
