Professor Luke O’Neill collaborates with Irish Red Cross inmate volunteers to create informative Covid-19 vaccine video for prison population.
In an effort to encourage vaccine uptake among the prison population, Irish Red Cross inmate volunteers have put together a video answering fellow inmates’ questions and concerns about the Covid-19 vaccine.
Collating the most commonly asked questions from inmates across Ireland’s 12 prisons, Irish Red Cross inmate volunteers then put the questions to Professor Luke O’Neill in a question and answers session that was recorded in May.
The 45-minute video, which is being shown on In Cell TV channels within the prison, hopes to educate the prison population about the benefits of the vaccine and encourage vaccine uptake among inmates.
Speaking about the event, Luke O’Neill stressed the importance of encouraging everyone to get vaccinated.
“During the event we talked about Covid-19, the vaccine, immunology and all sorts. We had a great question and answer session and many questions came up, which I was very happy to answer as best I could. We really want to see people getting vaccinated as it’s the main way out of Covid-19 and the vaccines are working great – they’re probably the best vaccines ever invented. We have nearly two billion people vaccinated now and we would encourage everybody to get vaccinated. A big thanks to the Red Cross volunteers for getting all the questions together for this important event.”
Just like in the community, inmates’ queries about the vaccine mostly centre around its safety and side effects, whether the vaccine actually contains the Covid-19 virus, whether it is likely to cause blood clots and if it can stop transmission of the virus from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated.
The volunteer programme, which started in 2009 and is a partnership between the Irish Red Cross, Irish Prison Service and Education and Training Boards, has brought about a radical transformation in the management of health related and infection control measures in prisons and has been pivotal to the successful management of Covid-19 in Irish prisons. To find out more about the programme, please visit: https://www.redcross.ie/cbhfa/