Palestinians get 60,000 vaccine doses through WHO program

By JOSEPH KRAUSS
March 17, 2021

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Palestinian Authority said Wednesday it will receive just over 60,000 coronavirus vaccine doses over the next 48 hours, the first shipment provided by a World Health Organization partnership aimed at helping poor countries.

That’s only enough doses to vaccinate 31,000 people out of a population of nearly 5 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel, which has faced criticism for not sharing more of its supplies with the Palestinians, has already vaccinated 5 million people — more than half of its population — and has largely reopened its economy.

Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Kamal al-Shakhra said authorities would receive 38,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 24,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The AstraZeneca vaccines will be kept in storage until the WHO reviews recent safety concerns.

An Israeli security official confirmed the shipment, which arrived in Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport, and said about a third of the vaccines would be sent to Gaza later on Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

These are the first doses to arrive through the WHO’s COVAX initiative, a global humanitarian partnership that has been slow to get off the ground, facing shortages of cash and supplies as rich countries have galloped ahead with their vaccination campaigns.

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