Prisoners across Punjab await booster jabs

Despite instructions, the third shot has not been administered to fully vaccinated inmates yet

LAHORE:

As Punjab tries to increase awareness for a booster dose, those languishing in the province’s prisons are at equal risk of contracting the new variant but a plan to give them the third jab has not been put into action yet.

According to documents obtained by The Express Tribune, there are 50,617 prisoners in 43 jails across Punjab out of which 49,439 prisoners are partially vaccinated while 38,037 are fully inoculated. Even though no prisoner has been affected by the fifth wave of the coronavirus, which is gathering pace across the country, the Omicron variant has been confirmed in three individuals of the prison stuff; raising concerns that the province’s jails may become a hotbed for the highly transmissible variant. Professor Dr Rizwan Aziz, a health expert while talking to The Express Tribune, highlighted the importance of getting a booster dose to fend off the Omicron variant.

Read: Inoculators struggle to convince women

“While the first and second jab does protect the body, the severity of the coronavirus varies in each body. Therefore boosters doses are extremely important especially for inmates in jails who live in close quarters,” Aziz explained.

Chairperson of a local non-governmental organization (NGO), Farah Hashmi, who advocates for the rights of incarcerated, concurring with Aziz’s views, called for the government to pay heed to the health of inmates as well as they were at high risk of contracting the virus. Worries of the Omicron variant aside, the health facilities available inside Punjab’s jails are subpar as well as per inmates which according to health experts is worrying especially if prisons become a superspreader hotbed.

According to officials in the province’s Home Department, only 40 doctors are available for 54,000 inmates in Punjab jails, including Lahore. Asadullah, who was recently released on bail, said that in the first wave of COVID, we were taken out of the Camp Jail in Lahore and transferred to Mandi Bahauddin Jail because of the sheer number of prisoners being held in the provincial capital’s jail. “There was no other facility in the Camp Jail other than a temperature check and safety protocols are non-existent,” he informed. Tariq Ali, another prisoner, who was released from the Kot Lakhpat Jail, leveled similar allegations against the provincial prison system.

“I was transferred to the Multan Jail during the second wave of Covid because there was no medical facility in mine,” Ali said, “the jails do not have any testing facility so identifying new variants is impossible and is a matter of great concern to all inmates.” While Inspector General (IG) Prisons Mirza Shahid Saleem Baig, in view of the growing fifth wave, has instructed to give booster doses in prisons across Punjab; implementation has not started yet. The Advisor to the Chief Minister on Health, Hanif Khan Pitafi, when inquired about the lack of implementation, said that the booster dose would be given to inmates as per the instructions of National Command and Operation Center (NCOC).

“Prisoners who got fully vaccinated 6 months ago, will be given a booster jab for which the Deputy Commissioners in the concerned districts have been directed to collect data from jail staff and administer booster doses accordingly with the help of the Health Department,” Pitafi informed The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2022.