Friday, March 29, 2024

President Edgar Lungu should consider releasing all HIV positive patients from prisons-Malembeka

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PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu should consider releasing all HIV positive patients from prisons because there are limited health services to attend to their health needs while incarcerated, says Prisons Care and Counseling Association executive director Godfrey Malembeka.

Dr. Malembeka said it would be a great Christmas present and a true reflection of the festive season to both the prisoners and their families to have them released on the day commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ.

Recent revelations have showed that Zambian prisons have over 20 000 inmates confined in 8 000-capacity facilities across the country.

He said Zambian prisons have inadequate health service facilities coupled with poor diets which are unfavorable to the requirements of healthy living especially for people living with the virus.

Dr. Malembeka explained that the same forgiveness must be extended to the elderly and those with tuberculosis (TB) as the facilities do not support them due to the congestion in the holding facilities countrywide.

He said the move would also help to decongest the highly populated facilities where inmates were exposed to inhuman living conditions including shortage of beddings and uniforms.

The PRISCCA boss charged that with too many people sharing limited space, the contagious nature of TB made it impossible to prevent exposure of the inmates to the disease.

Early this year, the Zambia Correctional Services (ZCS) disclosed that over 27 percent of inmates were HIV positive when they called for increased collaboration with various stakeholders involved in the counseling and treatment services especially civil society organisations and international development agencies who could help with adequate mechanisms of interventions.

It was observed that the establishment of ZCS health directorate has scaled up the number of inmates accessing HIV counselling and testing services and access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART), but that there was need to find alternatives ways of providing adequate service.

The commissioner, however, expressed delight that 90 percent of the inmates were already aware of their HIV status with 65 percent currently on ART.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Well, this could mean releasing everyone in all those prisons as I can bet my house that they are all infected. The majority are robbers who break into people homes, beat all the men and rape all female residents, this is risky behavour. whilst incarcerated, they engage in unnatural sex with inmates….too many (if not all) of them are infected.

  2. Wow! What an incredibly NOT well thought-out statement. Release HIV infected criminals back into the public with NO other criteria for their release so that they can now infect others? If they are in prison then they are there for a reason, and I would dare say some are there because of rape. Wow, I’m speechless honestly.

  3. Mu Zambia, are there any people who still remain with functioning brains? People should be answerable for their crimes and actions. Mulebako serious. This suggestion is ‘rotten’ and complete none sense. Have you ever heard of a word called responsibility? Ii is lacking in most Africans. The act first and think later. This proposal summarizes incapacity reason rationally. This is a double danger to the public. You all grown ups you know what I mean.

  4. They will be infecting innocent people by raping women let them finish the sentence first. Some will start robbing us again a thief is a thief not even tb can change their thieving attitude.

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