Introduction:

In many countries penal institutions have been scenary of COVID-19 outbreaks, due to the adverse conditions for maintaining social distancing, lack of individual protection and bad sanitary structure, which confluence to make possible this situation.

Objective:

To characterize the fulfilment of survillance and the control and prevention measures for COVID-19 in penal institutions.

Methods:

A descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out in 8 penal institutions from Santiago de Cuba during May, 2020. Independently from the obtained numerical data, it was decided to carry out summaries mainly of qualitative type, of those aspects considered in each of the visits.

Results:

Satisfactory results were obtained in the evaluation of the organization and the structure of each of the visited institutions, as well as in the fulfilment of the individual and collective control and prevention measures. It was also verified that the institutions had the human and material resources guarranting the fulfilment of the measures.

Conclusions:

Care and sanitary survillance to this vulnerable group to COVID-19 were demostrated, and other possible actions were identified for this purpose.

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