A Michigan women's prison will close to visitors next week to treat a scabies outbreak that has affected inmates for a year, according to the Detroit Free Press.
A total of 224 women who have noted skin rashes and some of their cellmates will start treatment on Monday with 24 hours in isolation and a round of Ivermectin, an anti-parasite medication. Thirty-nine women have already been diagnosed and treated for scabies, according to Michigan Corrections Department spokesman Chris Gautz.
Authorities will give the same treatment to all of the 2,070 women at the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility.
"This is an unusual event, but we want to solve this, and this is the best way the experts say to do it," Gautz said, according to the Detroit Free Press. "People may be carrying it and have no symptoms, and have no idea, so it's best to treat everyone."
In March 2018, the paper wrote that almost 50 women in the state's only women's prison had noticed a "mysterious" rash. One inmate, Rebecca Maureen Smith, said that she first contracted the rash in October 2017, but that many others had the rash previously.
The facility sent some inmates to a dermatologist outside the prison in March and treated the housing unit where inmates were experiencing rashes, Gautz told Newsweek. The doctor said the prisoners did not have scabies. Authorities began seeking other potential causes and checked the water, tested the air and looked at inmates' clothing.
"They would wash their bras or their underwear in their trash cans or toilets. I guess they thought that was a cleaner way of doing it than our laundry service, which is fairly new," he told Newsweek, saying some officials thought the washing method could be leading to the rash.
Authorities then checked with the laundry service to ensure personnel were carrying out their duties appropriately.
Dermatologists were not brought into the prison until December 2018.
Dr. Carmen McIntyre, chief medical officer for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said that bringing in a dermatologist more quickly could have been helpful but did not say that the prison mishandled the situation
"After we were told it wasn't scabies by many, many people," officials looked for other potential causes, Gautz told Newsweek. He said that medical professionals had been consulted throughout the search for the cause of the rash.
Scabies is caused by a mite infestation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which noted that outbreaks are common in prisons.
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