Deutsche Welle: Only prisoners in BiH want to get vaccinated

(Patria) - The vaccination rate in Bosnia and Herzegovina is among the lowest in Europe. An exception are the correctional facilities in this country, writes Deutsche Welle

"We are almost completely vaccinated," says the director of the Zenica Correctional Facility, Redžo Kahrić. This means that more than 90 percent of prisoners and more than 60 percent of employees have received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine so far, writes Deutsche Welle.

Translated to other correctional facilities in the country: more than 80 percent of the approximately 2,000 people currently serving sentences in one of the 13 prisons in BiH have been vaccinated at least once.

This is a big difference compared to the rest of the population, where only about 27 percent of citizens have been vaccinated. The reason lies not in the lack of vaccines, but in the reluctance of citizens to get vaccinated.

According to the authorities, vaccination in prisons is voluntary. Kahrić believes that the reasons for the high vaccination rate among prisoners should be sought in the fact that it is difficult to avoid or ignore measures within the correctional facility, especially if one accidentally comes into contact with an infected person. That is why they prefer to get vaccinated.

And while the coronavirus brings many problems to the rest of the country, there have been no major outbreaks of infection within prisons in BiH. "Many members of my family got infected, including my mother. That's why I think it's right to wear a mask and get vaccinated," says Fahro Kahriman, one of the prisoners at KP Zenica.

At the beginning of the pandemic, prisoners in BiH also played an important role in supplying the population with protective masks. According to the director of KP Zenica, Kahrić, over 10,000 masks were produced in Zenica alone.

Protective masks are still being produced in the prison workshop. Prisoners say they do it voluntarily. "Sewing masks is a meaningfully spent time in prison, and it is also useful for the entire society," says Kahriman.

The fact that masks are needed is also indicated by the data that in BiH, with 3.3 million inhabitants, almost 300,000 coronavirus infections and more than 13,000 deaths have been recorded so far, which is among the highest rates in Europe.