Prison authorities are not investigating how the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) entered the Lusignan Prison, where more than one hundred inmates were infected.
Contacted by Stabroek News yesterday, Director of Prisons Gladwin Samuels said that there are “many’ means in which COVID-19 could have entered the facility.
However, to date, he said there has not been any formal investigation to determine how the inmates were infected.
“There is no such investigation and even if there should be one it would require probably people from China coming to investigate it because there are too many means in which [COVID-19] could have got in there. We don’t even know who is the first person to contract it,” Samuels explained.
Earlier this week, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony announced that approximately 120 prisoners at the Lusignan Prison were tested positive for COVID-19. Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn subsequently gave the figure as 140.
This announcement was made almost one week after two inmates were tested positive for the disease at the facility. “Unfortunately that specific area where those prisoners were in was overcrowded and therefore it was a challenge to put all of the mitigating measures in place,” Anthony said.
He added that some prisoners subsequently complained of having some symptoms typical of COVID-19 and the prison informed the Ministry of Health. “…We were able to deploy a team late last week and we went in and were able to screen a number of persons and we actually did take samples from over 200 persons who were in the prison and 120 of those persons tested positive,” he explained.
Samuels yesterday said that the prisoners who were tested positive have been separated from the general population at the facility.
Since then, he added, testing is ongoing for both inmates and staff.
Last Saturday, two prisoners were fatally shot by guards and five others were wounded after what authorities have described as a riot and attempted breakout at the prison.
Prior to the shooting there had been protests by inmates over a number of issues, including overcrowding at the facility and the risk of exposure to COVID-19, which were raised earlier in the day when the Home Affairs and Health ministers visited.
Overcrowding at the facility has been a longstanding concern and in July Samuels had announced the release of around 350 inmates who had nearly completed their sentences as part of an effort to address the issue of overcrowding in the facilities.
In late March, weeks after Guyana recorded its first COVID-19 case, the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) had called for measures to be taken to reduce overcrowding in prisons given the potential risks posed by COVID-19 to prison staff and inmates, whom it described as the most exposed category of persons in the country.
In particular, it singled out the Lusignan Prison, saying that it was never intended to be a prison and constituted an ideal incubator of COVID-19.
