COVID-19 outbreak declared in Zamboanga City jail
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — The Zamboanga City government has an outbreak of coronavirus disease inside the City Reformatory Center (CRC) as the number of cases in the jail facility increased to 48 people as of Saturday night.
The number of COVID-19 cases in the city is at 59, including 11 cases recorded outside the jail facility.
Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar, chair of the local Inter-Agency Task Force COVID (IATF-COVID), said the outbreak came as 29 new positive results in the latest batch of tests conducted by St. Luke’s Medical Center came early Saturday evening.
Salazar said the new cases include 27 persons deprived of liberty (PDL) and two Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) personnel.
At least 19 others, including 18 PDLs, and a jail personnel, also tested positive in last Friday’s release of laboratory results from St. Luke's.
"The city government in collaboration with BJMP is exerting best efforts to include providing resources and logistics to address the outbreak inside the city jail,” Salazar said.
Isolation, transfers
According to Salazar, actions have been also been taken to facilitate the transfer of PDLs from the women's dormitory to protect older PDLs and those with underlying medical conditions.
Dr. Emila Monicimpo, Department of Health regional director, said PDLs who have been infected have been isolated from other detainees.
"They are contained in the area and medical needs have been provided. Because if we will take them out the virus will spread," Monicimpo said, citing that PDLs were mostly asymptomatic or ha dmild symptoms.
"What we are doing is to monitor them if they will develop symptoms then that’s the time we will bring them to ZCMC (Zamboanga City Medical Center) for confinement," Monicimpo added.
CRC, a jail facility designed for about 400 inmates, houses 3,319 PDLs and 128 Bureau of Jail Management and Penology personnel.
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