The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Good response to testing facility in prison

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Good response to testing facility in prison

Raghava M.

BANGALORE: The counselling and testing facility which opened recently at the Bangalore Central Prison has received good response.

Some 1,368 prison inmates have been tested at the Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre (VCTC) since it was opened in July. According to Additional Director General of Police and Inspector General of Prisons S.T. Ramesh, 44 inmates, including 10 women, tested positive. “This is 3.8 per cent of the total number of inmates,” Mr. Ramesh told The Hindu.

The VCTC was set up by the Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society at the behest of the Prisons Department.

Facilities

“There were difficulties in taking the inmates from the prison to the facility in Bowring Hospital,” he said. This VCTC — the first to be set up in a prison in the State — provides all facilities for detection and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The VCTC had a laboratory technician, a counsellor, an AIDS testing kit, a centrifuge and small refrigerator. KSAPS bears all the expenses of the VCTC, Mr. Ramesh said.

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