Hawke's Bay Regional Prison. Photo / Warren Buckland
An advocacy group has slammed the Covid vaccination rollout at Hawke's Bay Regional Prison, where just 2 per cent of inmates are fully vaccinated.
New figures show that nine of 514 prisoners have received both doses of the Pfizer jab at the jail, which equates to 1.8 per cent.
As at Tuesday, over 70 per cent of the prisoners (377) had received one dose.
On Tuesday it was also revealed a Corrections officer at Spring Hill prison south of Auckland had tested positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, in the past week, the virus has quickly spread through a jail in Sydney where more than 60 prisoners have been infected with the potentially deadly virus.
Advocacy group Howard League for Penal Reform says prisoners are at high risk in Hawke's Bay if something similar happens because of the low vaccination rate.
The delay in rolling out the vaccine at Mangaroa, near Hastings, has been partly down to a decision from the Government to suspend Covid jabs for more than a month at all its prisons because of a shortage in Pfizer doses.
NZ Department of Corrections chief custodial officer Neil Beales said vaccinations were being offered once again to prisoners and first doses were being rolled out at Hawke's Bay Regional Prison.
"At Hawke's Bay Regional Prison, health staff are offering first dose Covid-19 vaccinations to prisoners unit by unit," Beales said.
"Staff are reporting that men at the prison are enthusiastic and uptake of the vaccine has been high.
"While vaccinations are not compulsory, we have taken a proactive approach to encouraging people in prison to be vaccinated against Covid-19, and have provided them with information from the Ministry of Health."
Prisoners will be offered their second dose six weeks after they received their first, which will be rolled out from October 4.
He said the nine prisoners who had received both doses had received their jabs at other prison sites and had since been transferred to Hawke's Bay Regional Prison.
"All prison staff are required to wear masks at all times while on site, and staff interacting with prisoners are wearing personal protective equipment to prevent transmission.
"We are also using thermal cameras on entry to prison to assist us with identifying anyone who is symptomatic."
Nationally, 14 per cent of prisoners have received both doses of the vaccine: 1122 of 8181 inmates.
Howard League spokesman Cosmo Jeffery said the low number of prisoners fully vaccinated in Hawke's Bay was not good enough.
"I think that if you look at the Government policy for Corrections, people in jail should receive the same level of treatment as the general public.
"Obviously they aren't and that is a big concern."
He called on Corrections to rapidly increase the vaccination rate and highlighted the risk to prisoners if Covid were to make its way into the jail.
"In a relatively small prison with 500 people it would spread through really quickly," he said.
"We have huge concerns about Covid in other ways also, in terms of the number of hours people are spending locked up [confined to their cells]."
No prisoner in New Zealand has tested positive for Covid.
More than 30 per cent of the general public has now been fully vaccinated across the Hawke's Bay DHB region, as of yesterday.