The government is yet to include incarcerated people in crowded prisons in the ongoing inoculation programme across the country despite World Health Organisation reported on April 4 that prisoners have a much higher risk of COVID-19 transmission than outside communities.

The department of prisons recently sent a list of 14,000 convicted inmates through the home ministry requesting the Directorate General of Health Services to include people in prisons in the ongoing vaccination programme in phases.

‘We will take step soon to include people in prisons in the ongoing vaccination programme,’ director general of the directorate of health services professor Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam told New Age on Sunday.

The director general, however, did not mention any timeframe as to when the prisoners can get access to the vaccine.

Department of Prisons’ additional inspector general of prisons Colonel Md Abrar Hossain told New Age on Sunday that the prison authority in July submitted a list of 14,000 convicted prisoners to the Directorate General of Health Services.

He said that they would submit another list of under-trial prisoners to include them in the vaccinations programme after the completion of vaccinations of the convicted prisoners. 

He said that there were over 14,000 convicted prisoners and over 60,000 under-trial prisoners in the country’s 68 prisons this week.

A total of 654 officials of the Department of Jail were so far tested Covid positive, according to the department’s statistic as of August 14.

It showed that a total of 591 officials recovered from Covid-19.

The statistic, however, did not disclose names of prisoners, who died of Covid-19 or with symptoms of the virus.

On Sunday, former director general of the National Security Intelligence retired Brigadier General Abdur Rahim, who was among 19 people sentenced to death for killing 24 people on August 21, 2004 by planting bombs on a rally of the then opposition Awami League in front of its central office in Gulistan, died of Covid-19 after two weeks of his referral to a hospital from the Kashimpur -2 Central Jail.

The jail authority reported the first case of death of Sylhet Central Jail prisoner Ahmad Hossain, 53, due to Covid infection on May 10.

The government started administering a nationwide seven-day vaccination campaign from August 7 by setting up new vaccination centres at unions and wards across the country.

Any citizen above 25 years of age, excluding people of several prioritised groups, including outbound workers and students, can now receive the Covid vaccine after registering on Surokkha app, according to DGHS.

The statistic showed that Mymensingh Central Jail’s senior superintendent Abu Zahid died of COVID-19 on July 26, 2020 and chief warden of Tangail district jail Alamgir Hossain died of Covid-19 on June 26, 2021.

The country’s prisons are overcrowded as there are over 74,000 prisoners staying against the capacity of 41,244 in the 68 prisons as of July 31, according to the Department of Prisons.

The World Health Organisation in a report released on its website on April 26 said that people living and working in prisons should not be neglected as national programmes of Covid vaccination roll out across the WHO European Region and globally.

It was the main message of a recent article published by WHO/Europe in the Lancet journal.

The report said that during the pandemic, immunisation activities in detention facilities can play a big role in reducing inequities in countries.

The report said that WHO research showed that the risk of transmission of Covid-19 was higher in prisons, where people live in close proximity to each other and have limited access to testing and personal protective equipment.