Coronavirus breaches Kenyan prison walls, 31 taken ill

A prison bus takes remandees to Nairobi Remand and Allocation Prison on Enterprise Road. At least 59 per cent of coronavirus tests at the facility returned positive. [File, Standard]

At least 31 remandees and prisoners in Nairobi have contracted the coronavirus, the Kenya Prison Service (KPS) said on Sunday.

According to KPS, the positive cases are from 59 inmates who had completed a 21-day quarantine stay at the Nairobi Remand and Allocation Prison after being charged in various courts.

KPS Commissioner General Wycliffe Ogallo said the test samples were collected on Thursday, May 28 as part of the ongoing mass testing and results returned yesterday. 

"The Nairobi County Emergency Response Team promptly moved in and evacuated the patients to various treatment centres for case management," he said in a statement.

He added that "perfect calm" had prevailed at the facility, allaying fears of a massive virus outbreak.

"All the convicts and remandees currently in our custody are safe," said Ogallo.

The 129 correctional facilities in Kenya, often crowded and with compromised hygiene practices, have had strict containment measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The move has seen 11,000 petty offenders and convicts who had already served the entirety of their respective jail terms released to decongest the prisons and achieve some social distance.

KPS has also suspended visits to all prisons, borstal institutions and youth corrective training centres to contain the bug.

Ogallo said the measures are progressively being reviewed based on the current outbreak dynamics of the pandemic.

"If need be, we will adopt and deploy more radical approaches to prevent the spread of the virus within our correctional facilities," he said.

Kenya yesterday confirmed 143 new cases of the virus to take its infection tally to 1,888, since March 12 when the first case was reported.

Of the new cases, 86 cases were in Nairobi with 45 were from Makadara while 21 were from Kibra. Embakasi South come third with six cases. Langata had one case.

Uasin Gishu reported 11 cases, all truck drivers.

The disease has spread to 33 counties, the latest being Kericho which reported one case in Ainamoi area.

So far 464 people have recovered from the disease, while 63 have died.