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Virus: Palestinian Authority speeds up vaccination

RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Authority on Sunday began vaccinating people over 75 and some patients in the occupied West Bank, a few days after receiving a first batch of Covax coronavirus vaccines intended for disadvantaged regions.

During a ceremony in Ramallah, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh launched this new phase of the vaccination campaign, until then limited to medical personnel, along with the UN special envoy for the Middle East, Tor Wennesland.

“We have allocated an additional $ 12 million to procure vaccines,” said Shtayyeh. “The problem is not the money but the availability of vaccines.”

Palestinians with kidney disease and cancer and those over the age of 75 can now get vaccinated, after receiving around 60,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines on Wednesday, thanks to aid to poor areas being implemented. funded by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Vaccine Alliance.

The Palestinian Authority is also awaiting delivery of 100,000 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

Health Minister Mai al-Kaila had warned in recent weeks about the upsurge in contamination and the overcrowding of hospitals in the West Bank, where a curfew is in force at night and on weekends.

“Vaccination will help prevent a collapse of the health system, vulnerable people will be taken care of, this is a very important first step,” said Tor Wennesland, the UN special envoy, in Ramallah.

President Mahmoud Abbas, 85, posted a photo on his Facebook page on Saturday showing him being vaccinated. According to rumors that appeared at the end of February, Palestinian officials and personalities had already been vaccinated.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health then confirmed that the national football team, ministers and members over 65 of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Mr. Abbas is president, had received the vaccine.

In the Gaza Strip, where more than 20,000 of the 60,000 doses of the Covax device have arrived, some had already been able to be vaccinated last week, after the delivery of some 40,000 doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V from the Arab Emirates United.

The shipment was claimed by Mohammed Dahlane, a dissident of the Palestinian Fatah movement in exile in the Emirates, who had already transferred at the end of February a batch of 20,000 doses to the enclave of two million Palestinians.

Israel, which administered the two necessary doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to about 4.5 million of its citizens (almost half of its population), had promised the Palestinians 5,000 doses of the vaccine. The Jewish state recently vaccinated more than 100,000 Palestinians working in Israel or in settlements in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has identified nearly 165,000 sick in the occupied West Bank, including 1,845 deaths. In the Gaza Strip, 58,972 infected people have been officially detected, including 582 deaths.

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