By Kemo Cham
Eighteen prisoners have tested positive for the Coronavirus disease, prison authorities have confirmed to Politico.
The cases, according to the Sierra Leone Correctional Services (SLCS), were all direct or indirect contacts of Case 90, which was confirmed at the end of April.
Case 90 tested positive while on remand at the Pademba Road Prison. He was in the health facility of the prison.
In response, all inmates at the remand section of the prison were relocated to the Male Re-integration Center in the premises of the former Special Court, which was designated an Isolation and Observation Unit.
A spokesman for the SLCS told Politico that after weeks of quarantine, tests were conducted on a total of 78 contacts identified and 18 returned positive.
Lesely Cole-Showers, Public Relations Officer of the SLCS, said all the cases were in the prison’s Clinic in the male reintegration facility responding to treatment.
“We have this under control. All of them are under treatment and the remaining contacts are in isolation,” Mr Cole-Showers, said.
Case 90 was arrested by the East End Police officers for unspecified offences and was later charged and brought before a magistrate court on April 17 before being sent to Pademba Road on the same day where he reported sick on April 20.
He was admitted at the Male Correctional Center Hospital, where he confessed to having escaped from a quarantine center at Cow Yard, Guard Street, Freetown, before his arrest. He would later be taken to the 34 Military Hospital and subsequently to Connaught.
Case 90 became a major concern for the National Covid-19 Response Team when he made a second escape from an isolation center at the Forah Bay College. But was later apprehended.
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