Pilibhit: Less than a year after 24 prisoners at Gorakhpur district jail tested positive for HIV, 22 inmates at Pilibhit district jail have tested positive to HIV. Pilibhit Jail superintendent Vivek Tripathi confirmed the development which has left the prison department embarrassed.“We will have to look into each of the specific case based on date of their admission and the time they were detected positive for HIV,” Sharad Kulshrestha, additional inspector general (prison), said.This development comes amid four inmates of the district jail succumbing to various ailments in the past two months. They were shifted to the district hospital in critical conditions.“A medical check-up of every jail inmate is done at the time he or she is lodged. However, this medical report does not ascertain the HIV status of the prisoner,” additional IG (prison) Kulshrestha said. This makes things difficult for prison officials to ascertain if the inmate was HIV positive before he was lodged in the prison or he was infected inside the premises.After the Gorakhpur incident last year where 24 prison inmates were tested positive for HIV, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had directed the prison department to take immediate preventive measures so that other prisoners do not fall prey to the infection and those were suffering are provided necessary medical treatment.“Weight of each inmate is measured periodically and if any alarming decrease in a prisoner's weight is detected he/she is referred to the prison hospital. Inmates detected with HIV positive are registered at anti-retroviral therapy (ATR) centres in district hospitals,” Kulshrestha said.In a test conducted at 70 jails of UP till December 2017, a total of 265 were tested positive for HIV. Senior officials, however, claim that 250-odd HIV positive inmates across UP jails is not an alarming figure. “With approximately 1 lakh inmates in jails across UP, 265 HIV positive is not an alarming figure. These inmates are immediately registered with ATR centres on diagnosis,” the additional IG (prison) said.

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