His Majesty’s Cayman Islands Prison Services has confirmed two cases of chickenpox within its prison population.
A brief media statement on Friday night, 10 Feb., confirming the two cases, did not specify at which prison the highly contagious virus had been detected.
Julian Lewis, chief acting officer for the Ministry of Home Affairs, said in the statement, “We are being carefully guided by the Chief Medical Officer and the Public Health Department to effectively manage this through appropriate isolation, treatment, prevention and access to immunisations for prisoners and staff at His Majesty’s Cayman Islands Prison Services.”
Chickenpox is caused by the varicella-zoster virus.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the average incubation period for chickenpox is 14–16 days, and infected patients are contagious one to two days before the onset of rash. An infected person is considered contagious until no new lesions have appears for 24 hours, and symptoms typically last four to seven days.
An outbreak of chickenpox in June last year at the Customs and Border Control detention centre in George Town, at which Cuban asylum-seekers were being held, led to detainees being transferred to the civic centre at Breakers so they could isolate separately from the main population at the detention centre.
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