MOSCOW (Reuters) – Alexey Navalny, a prisoner of war in the Kremlin, said on Monday he had a high temperature and a bad cough, and that three of the 15 inmates in his Russian prison ward were being treated in hospital for tuberculosis.
Navalny, 44, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, declared a hunger strike last week to protest against what he said the prison authorities were refusing to give him proper medical care for acute back and leg pain.
His allies have said they will hold a film outside his jail from Tuesday, unless he is examined by a doctor of his choice and whom he considers to be proper medicine.
State media and some members of a prison monitoring group have accused him of dropping his medical problems to keep himself in the public eye, something that Navalny and his allies deny.
On Monday, Navalny said a third person from his ward was taken to hospital with tuberculosis, that he had a high temperature and cough, and he joked darkly that he could alleviate the relief of the disease from his other ailments.
‘If I have tuberculosis, it can drive out the pain in my back and numbness in my legs. It will be nice, “he wrote on Instagram.
“I quote the official statistics of today’s temperature measurement: ‘Navalny AA, bad cough, temperature 38.1,'” he wrote in an Instagram post, adding that he intended to continue his hunger strike.
A temperature above 38 degrees Celsius (100.58 degrees Fahrenheit) usually indicates fever caused by an infection or illness.
Navalny’s lawyers regularly visited him in custody and helped him continue to post messages on social media.
Authorities at the IQ-2 correctional penal colony 100 km (60 miles) east of Moscow, where the opposition politician is being held, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on an outbreak of tuberculosis or the temperature and cough of Navalny.
They had previously said that his condition was satisfactory and that he had been provided with all necessary medical care.
Anastasiya Vasilyeva, a doctor and ally of Navalny, confirmed that plans for a protest would take place on Tuesday.
Additional reporting by Vladmir Soldatkin and Polina Nikolskaya; Edited by Timothy Heritage