Prevalence of infectious skin diseases in the central prison of Kerman

Background: Living in colonies and public places may cause increase in infectious diseases. Prisons are places with high-density population. Prisoners don’t persist on moral and social dictum bases and usually have low educational and cultural levels. So they are at high risk of several diseases including contagious skin diseases. Objective: As contagious skin diseases are important for social health care, this study was done to determine the prevalence of these diseases in a prison in Kerman. Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 3525 prisoners, comprising about half of the prisoners, in the Central Prison of Kerman. Results: 2851 of the case were male and 674 were female. The mean age of male cases was 36.05±11.3 years and for female was 35.5±14.0 years. Among all prisoners 4.6% had pediculosis. 1.2% had scabies and 3.7% had tinea pedis. Among the prisoners 55.8% were addict and 73.6% were smokers. There were no meaningful relationship between addiction or smoking and the diseases (P=0.576 and P=0.660). Conclusion: Contagious skin diseases are common in prisons. Health and security authorities should plan for a community free of drugs, prisons and prisoners.