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Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) Ger­ard Gor­don says that a re­cent “out­break” of the vari­cel­la virus (chick­en­pox) at the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) is a sign of larg­er chal­lenges fac­ing the T&T Prison Ser­vice, as he warns that ex­ist­ing fa­cil­i­ties may not be enough to ad­dress such a high­ly con­ta­gious dis­ease.

On Fri­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion on its of­fi­cial Face­book page an­nounced that there was an out­break of chick­en­pox at the fa­cil­i­ty and urged of­fi­cers to ad­here to the “strictest pro­to­cols” of hy­giene to re­duce the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­fec­tion.

Yes­ter­day, the prison ser­vice in a me­dia re­lease re­vealed that there were 29 in­mates be­ing treat­ed at a con­tain­ment unit in the prison, while sev­en prison staff were on sick leave af­ter con­tract­ing chick­en­pox.