OWING to a weekly vaccination drive between the Guyana Prison Services (GPS) and the Ministry of Health, over 50 per cent of inmates have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

As a result of the collaboration, the vaccination drive has reached each prison location across the country.

An initiative to increase confidence in COVID-19 vaccines and reinforce basic prevention measures among the prisoners is also high on the GPS agenda, the GPS said in a statement on Thursday.

According to statistics from the GPS, nearly 60 per cent of officers and staff members have already taken both doses of their vaccines, while for the prisoners, of the 50 per cent who have been inoculated, 45 per cent have already taken their second dose.

Guyana’s prison population has over 1,800 inmates, including detainees and remand prisoners, across its five penal institutions, namely the Lusignan, New Amsterdam, Timehri, Camp Street, and Mazaruni Prisons. But with the system only having the capacity to accommodate approximately 1,300 prisoners, it is grossly overcrowded.

For this reason, with a higher risk of spread of the virus, it is all the more important for the prisoners to be inoculated against COVID-19.

Last year, over 200 prisoners at the Lusignan prisons had tested positive for the virus, and were quarantined. They were later cleared for reintegration into the prison population.
Guyana has a vibrant vaccination campaign ongoing which offers the COVID-19 vaccines free of charge to citizens from 12 years old.

The Pfizer BioNTech vaccines are available for children from 12 to 17 years old, while persons 18 years and older have the option of choosing from the Sputnik V, Sinopharm, and Astrezeneca vaccines.