By KETRA KALUNGA
MPIMA remand correctional facility has been designated as COVID-19 isolation centre for inmates, the Zambia Correctional Service (ZCS) has announced.
Correctional Services commissioner-general, Chisela Chileshe, said the medical command post at Mpima remand would serve as an isolation centre in the prevention of the spread of the global pandemic among inmates.
Dr Chileshe told the Daily Nation in an interview that the centre had been picked because it has enough space to accommodate inmates that could be affected by the disease.
“The medical command post at Mpima remand is the isolation centre in case of any case of COVID-19, inmates will be taken there,” Dr Chileshe said.
The ZCS commissioner-general said restriction of visits by relatives of inmates to correctional facilities had been enforced to prevent the spread of the virus.
Asked about fear of the fatal disease among inmates, Dr Chileshe said the fear of the outbreak of the virus was there but at different levels.
And Dr Chileshe has appealed to various stakeholders to provide correctional facilities with more materials to prevent the spread of COVID-19, among them medical masks.
He said the correctional facilities did not have enough medical masks because those that have been used once were disposed of in line with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
“I am appealing to stakeholders to provide the facilities with more materials to prevent the spread of the virus, we don’t have enough especially the masks that are disposed of once used,” Dr Chileshe said.
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