LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga., May 2 (UPI) -- Officials at a Georgia jail say they have contained a dangerous infection that killed an inmate.
Zachary Harris, 20, who had been incarcerated in the Gwinnett County Detention Center for a year, died Saturday, three days after he was transferred to the Gwinnett Medical Center after a sharp drop in blood pressure, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Harris, who complained of a sore throat in mid-April, had a bacterium related to meningitis in his blood stream.
Authorities say that the inmates who lived in the same unit as Harris and all guards and medical personnel who came into contact with him have been given prophylactic antibiotics. One inmate who refused the antibiotic has been placed in isolation in the jail medical unit.
Prison Health Services, the private contractor handling medical care at the jail, has been under fire since a female inmate with leukemia died in her cell after three days of begging to be hospitalized. Since then, the county has appointed a superior officer to supervise the company full-time.
