Prisons cries out for Covid-19 vaccines
Explained. Mr Frank Baine, Uganda Prisons Service spokesperson. MONITOR PHOTO
What you need to know:
- The prison services spokesperson, Mr Frank Baine, in an interview with the Daily Monitor yesterday, said they are waiting to receive more Covid-19 doses from the Ministry of Health to resume the exercise.
The Uganda Prisons Service has said more than10,000 out of the more than 60,000 inmates have so far received their first Covid-19 jabs across the country.
The prison services spokesperson, Mr Frank Baine, in an interview with the Daily Monitor yesterday, said they are waiting to receive more Covid-19 doses from the Ministry of Health to resume the exercise.
“We have been giving inmates and staff AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines. We hope to get more doses and continue with the vaccination exercise,” Mr Baine said.
He added: “We started by vaccinating the elderly inmates, those aged 50 years and above and those with underlying health conditions.”
By August, the prison authorities had registered more than 1,700 Covid-19 cases among inmates, 176 among prison staff and 60 relatives of prison staff.
A World Health Organisation (WHO) research done in April showed that the risk of transmission of Covid-19 is higher in prisons, where people live in close proximity and have limited access to testing and personal protective equipment.
“Compared to the wider community, people living in prisons have a disproportionately higher burden of comorbidities, including non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which increases their chances of suffering severe outcomes from Covid-19,” WHO revealed.
As of October 18, government had administered 2,575,021 doses of the vaccines.
