The Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC) is preparing to begin the Covid-19 inoculation drive in prisons across the Maldives.

Speaking to press on Thursday night, the center’s spokesperson, Dr. Nazla Rafeeq revealed that they are preparing to launch vaccination in prisons run by the Maldives Correctional Service (MCS).

As such, Dr. Nazla revealed that they have conducted training sessions for the teams of healthcare workers, doctors and nurses who will be active in the vaccination programmes at prisons.

The HEOC spokesperson confirmed that the teams will be active at prisons, in the near future.

This comes at a time an additional Covid-19 infection was detected in Hulhumalé Prison on Thursday, less than 24 hours after the discovery of another Covid-19 case on Wednesday.

Contact tracing is currently underway at the prison facility.

Dr. Nazla went on to reveal that the healthcare authorities had conducted random sampling programmes at all four prisons run by MCS in order to ensure there was no community transmission of the global pandemic.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) had previously discovered Covid-19 cases in a number of prison and detention facilities. The correctional authority assured that it will continue to enforce measures and uninterruptedly provide services at prison and detention facilities under the guidelines set by HPA to safeguard against the fatal infection.