Cebu City Jail starts inmates' COVID-19 vaccination

CEBU, Philippines —  With the stable supply of COVID-19 vaccines, the Cebu City government has finally started its vaccination of inmates at the city jail.

“Dugay na ni nato giplano, pero karon na-push through na gyud nato,” said City Health Department officer-in-charge, Dr. Jeffrey Ibones, in an interview.

The city’s Vaccination Operations Center together with the support of the nurses from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology is looking at inoculating all the inmates but they are first vaccinating the senior citizens and those with comorbidities.

The initial master list shows 2,500 of the 6,000 inmates have already signified their intention to get the vaccine against COVID-19. The city will inoculate the male inmates first before the female ones.

Ibones said that following the positive turnout in the initial rollout at BJMP, they hope to vaccinate everyone with at least a thousand inmates per day for one week.

The female dormitory has less than 500 inmates, thus inoculation is expected to be fast.

“Hopefully silang tanan magpabakuna and mahuman nig usa ka semana or kung di man gani, malapas og gamay lang,” said Ibones.

Prior to the vaccine rollout, an information campaign drive was also done to properly educate everyone at BJMP on the importance of vaccines.

“Kung naay usa magsakit nila, maamong tanan..plus moabot sad ang time naa nay dalaw, luoy pud atong mga PDL wala silay dalaw, so mas safer and much better if tanan na gyud mabakunahan,” added Ibones.

Last year, Councilor Dave Tumulak noted over a hundred persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) got infected with COVID-19. — Decemay P. Padilla, GMR (FREEMAN)