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# Measles Breaks Out in Colombo Prisons
- URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/featured/measles-breaks-out-in-colombo-prisons/
- Published: 2026-11-09T15:08:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T15:12:09.000Z
- Author: Our Reporter
- Tags: November 2026

**COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —** Sri Lanka's Department of Prisons has stopped sending inmates from three Colombo prisons to court after measles was confirmed among detainees, the department's spokesman said.

No inmates from the Colombo Remand Prison, Magazine Prison or Welikada Prison were produced in court on Monday, Senaka Pallethenna, a commissioner of prisons and the department's media spokesman, said. The department has notified the courts concerned in writing, and the suspension is temporary, he said.

As a result, no prisoners from the three facilities appeared before the Colombo High Court, the Colombo Chief Magistrate's Court or the Fort Magistrate's Court.

Pallethenna said several inmates at Magazine and Welikada had tested positive for measles in recent days and that the disease could spread quickly to other prisoners. A vaccination program has begun inside the prisons, and the department is working to resume court appearances as soon as possible, he said. He did not say how many inmates were infected or when transfers would restart.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known. It spreads through the air, and one infected person passes it to an average of 18 others who are exposed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Crowded, enclosed settings make it harder to contain. Welikada, on the same complex as Magazine Prison, is the largest prison in the country.

Sri Lankan prisons have been struck by contagious disease before. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the first infection at Welikada was detected on July 7, 2020\. By late January 2021, the prisons cluster had grown to 4,395 cases and nine deaths. At the height of that outbreak, Welikada held about 4,500 inmates in a facility built for 2,000, according to figures cited at the time.

Fear of the virus turned deadly. On Nov. 29, 2020, inmates at Mahara Prison, outside Colombo, protested over rising infections. Guards opened fire, and 11 inmates were killed and more than 100 injured. In 2023, a magistrate ruled that the shooting deaths were a crime.

Measles has also spread through detention facilities in other countries. In the United States, the C.D.C. recorded more than 100 measles cases in nine detention facilities in three states between January and mid-April this year. When five inmates at a county jail in New Mexico tested positive in June 2025, officials suspended in-person visits and moved court hearings online. A 2016 outbreak at an immigration detention center in Arizona infected 23 detainees and nine staff members.

The World Health Organization certified Sri Lanka as having eliminated measles in 2019\. An outbreak that began in Colombo in May 2023 later spread to other districts, and the Health Ministry's Epidemiology Unit said it was largely under control by May 2025\. Health officials have said young adults between 20 and 30 accounted for the most cases in that outbreak.

In April, the ministry reported two new cases in children in the Colombo District, the first since January 2025, and said laboratory testing had shown that at least one infection was imported. Officials urged parents to make sure children received both doses of the vaccine, which Sri Lanka gives at 9 months and 3 years.