Situation of Coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19] in Thai prisons, 2020

Abstract

Background: The Division of Epidemiology has conducted the disease surveillance, prevention and control in prisons under the prison project “Good Health Good Heart”. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks has occurred in Thai prisons since 2020. Therefore, epidemiological surveillance was conducted with the purposes to explain the distribution and to identify risk factors in order to prevent and control the disease outbreaks.
Method: A descriptive epidemiological study was conducted by reviewing the reported COVID-19 confirmed cases associated to prisons between January and December 2020.
Results: There were totally 6 prison–associated COVID-19 cases. Most of them were male (66.67%), the median age was 49 years old (range 37–60 years old). The ratio between proportion of warders and inmates was 1:1. Most of the cases (50.00%) were found in March (50.00%), followed by in April (33.33%). Most cases had fever (83.33%), followed by cough (66.67%), sore throat (50.00%) and sputum (50.00%). One case had severe symptoms with pneumonia, two cases had a history of underlying disease. The percentage of 66.67% of the cases had a history of visiting to the hospitals where the COVID-19 confirmed cases were admitted. One case was a close contact with the police who was a confirmed case. One case had worked in a pub before being detained. The longest incubation period mean was 1 0 days whereas the shortest incubation period mean was 4.5 days. The period mean between onset and sample collection date was 5 days. The period mean between onset and hospitalization date was 5 days.
Conclusions: In this study, male patients were found more than female patients due to majority of both warders and inmates were male. Therefore, the disease prevention and control are necessary to monitor the occurrence of the disease in warders who can be infected from outside the prisons and potentially spread the disease to inmates. Most of the risk factors were from warders who accompanied inmates to seek treatment in hospitals. The screening and collecting the samples to confirm infection of every new inmates will reduce the risk of spreading the disease in prisons.