OneWorld.net (U.S.)

LIMA, Peru, Sep 14 (OneWorld) - Diseases in Latin American prisons are so abundant that they are leaking out and threatening the health of the general population, said a host of international health experts and government officials meeting in Lima this week.

Figures from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) show tuberculosis is now up to 100 times more common in Peruvian prisons than among the free population, while AIDS is about six times easier to contract in Peru's largest prison, San Juan de Lurigancho, than in the streets of Lima, according to Doctors Without Borders.

In-prison diseases are spilling into the public at large due to the vast amount of traffic in and out of prisons.

For example, at Lima's Lurigancho prison, which holds some 8,500 prisoners (but is designed for just 1,500), about 4,000 visitors come and go on an average visiting day, said a spokesman for Peru's National Prison Institute, the government body that manages the country's penal system.

Linking prisoner health to the health of the public at large may help spark action on the issue.

The Red Cross is urging all the countries participating in this week's seminar to include the theme of penitentiary health in their national health policy.

"What we want is that the government understands that the problem of health in prisons is a public health problem," Sergio Leon, a doctor and expert on penitentiary health for the ICRC in Peru, told OneWorld.

Experts and authorities from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay are attending the five-day seminar, which ends Friday and is sponsored by the Peruvian National Prison Institute and the ICRC.

Peru and Bolivia are both currently restructuring their penal health systems, while Brazil has recently come under fire for the dangerous conditions in its prisons.

Dr. Leon and other ICRC doctors believe that prison problems all around Latin America stem from the same dilemma.

"Prisons are government organs that manage security and criminals, but they are not health institutions. Precisely what we are trying to promote here (in Peru) is that the National Prison institute structurally transforms its direction to coordinate health," he said.

The president of Peru's National Prison Institute has already declared that ongoing reforms should include the creation of a national health department within the Prison Institute.

One reason little has been done to address health in penitentiaries is that prisoners are often seen as not having rights, said Dr. Jose Best, the National Health Coordinator for Peru's Prison Institute.

"You can go to prison for not paying child support, or just for breaking a traffic regulation. Every one of us is vulnerable to entering a prison, so we should worry about their (prisoners') quality of life," Best told OneWorld.

Seminar discussions have centered on how to design, set up, and run health systems inside prisons, how to connect them to the public health sector, and how to control tuberculosis and treat HIV/AIDS.

"The intention of this Latin American seminar is precisely to create a network of experts and the exchange of experience about prison health," said Dr. Leon, who hopes to organize successive seminars.

The solution to the problem is not to turn prisons into hospitals, but rather to focus on preventing illness, Leon said.

"Health is nutrition, is space in the cells, is shelter. They build prisons with little space, little light, little ventilation. They have to provide quality of life in prisons."

In general, prisoners have doctors, infirmaries, and technical personnel for prevention, provided by the Peruvian Ministry of Health, but rights groups like the ICRC say support has been limited.

About 36,000 people are currently being held in Peru's approximately 80 prisons.

Illnesses spread more easily in prisons due to overcrowding, the failure to detect disease in prisoners early enough to prevent transmission, and haphazard treatment (and consequent resistance of disease to drugs), according to the ICRC.

According to the U.S. State Department's 2005 country report on Peru, inmates in all prisons had "intermittent access to running water; bathing facilities were inadequate; kitchen facilities remained generally unhygienic; and prisoners slept in hallways and common areas due to lack of cell space."

Risky behavior between inmates was very common and included unprotected sexual practices, unsafe tattooing, drug abuse, and sexual violence, the report found.

In Peru's women's prisons, children 3 years of age and younger are kept with their jailed mothers.

According to Dr. Best, Peru does not keep track of how many people die in prison.

The U.S. State Department deemed conditions particularly harsh in maximum-security facilities located at high altitudes where temperatures are freezing, such as Challapalca prison.

Amnesty International has led a campaign for the shutdown of Challapalca. All prisoners have been withdrawn from the prison but Amnesty is still urging the government to permanently close the facility.