At least 50 women infected with the coronavirus in Sepidar Prison in the city of Ahvaz, Khuzestan province.
The women were quarantined after getting infected with the virus and suffering symptoms such as fever and coughing. Other prisoners also have symptoms similar to the common cold.
The prison doctor is also sick and there is no one to treat the patients. Prisoners have no medicine.
Prison authorities have refused to take the prisoners’ medicine from their families and give it to them.
Some of the families of the prisoners have provided medicine, but prison officials have refused to take the medicine and give it to the prisoners.
According to reports, the authorities have maintained silence about the spread of the outbreak among the female inmates this facility and do not report on their condition. Therefore, the lives of many prisoners in this facility is in serious danger of being infected.
The Covid-19 patients are now quarantined in a cell which is separated from the rest of the wards by only a few bars.
The area for fresh air is the same for infected prisoners and others.
As the infection and death toll of the novel coronavirus continues to mount across Iran, prisons are hit especially badly, as the regime intentionally refrains from providing prisoners with the means to protect themselves against the virus.
In the past two months, thousands of inmates in several prisons around the country including in Sepidar prison staged protests over fears of contracting the coronavirus, sparking deadly responses from prison officers and security forces.
Meanwhile, many prisoners staged hunger strikes to protest at the authorities’ failure to respond to their demands for releases, testing in prisons, provision of adequate sanitary products and facilities, and the quarantining of prisoners suspected of infection.
