Palestinians left waiting as Israel prepares for vaccine
Israel will begin rolling out a major coronavirus vaccination campaign next week after the prime minister reached out personally to the head of a major drug company. Millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control will have to waitmuch longer.
Worldwide, rich nations are snatching up scarce supplies of new vaccines as poor countries largely rely on a World Health Organisation programme that has yet to get off the ground. There are few places where the competition is playing out in closer proximity than in Israel and the territories it has occupied for more than half a century.
Next year could bring a sharp divergence in the trajectory of the pandemic, which until now has blithely ignored the national boundaries and political enmities of the Middle East. Israelis could soon return to normal life and an economic revival, even as the virus continues to menace Palestinian towns and villages just a few kilometres away.
Israel reached an agreement with the Pfizer pharmaceutical company to supply 8 million doses of its newly approved vaccine – enough to cover nearly half of Israel’s population of 9 million, since each person requires two doses. That came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally reached out multiple times to
Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla, boasting that at one point he was able to reach the chief executive at 2am.
Israel has mobile vaccination units with refrigerators that can keep the Pfizer shots at the required -70C. It plans to begin vaccinations as soon as next week, with a capacity of more than 60,000 shots a day. Israel reached a separate agreement with Moderna earlier this month to purchase 6 million doses of its vaccine – enough for another 3 million Israelis.
Israel’s vaccination campaign will include Jewish settlers living deep inside the West Bank, who are Israeli citizens, but not the territory’s 2.5 million Palestinians.
They will have to wait for the cashstrapped Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupiedwest Bank in accordance with interim peace agreements reached in the 1990s. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories the Palestinian seek for their future state, in the 1967 Mideastwar.
The PA hopes to get vaccines through a Who-led partnership with humanitarian organisations knownas Covax, which aims to provide free vaccines for up to 20 per cent of the population of poor countries, many ofwhich have been hit especially hard by the pandemic.
But the programme has secured only a fraction of the 2 billion doses it hopes to buy over the next year, has yet to confirm any actual deals and is short on cash. Rich countries have already reserved about 9 billion of the estimated 12 billion doses the pharmaceutical industry is expected to produce next year.
Complicating matters is the fact that the Palestinians have only one re
frigeration unit – in the oasis town of Jericho – capable of storing the Pfizer vaccine. They are among nearly 3 billion people worldwide for whom lack of adequate refrigeration capacity could pose amajor obstacle.
Dr Ali Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian health official, said the PA is in talks with Pfizer and Moderna – whose vaccines require extra- cold storage – as well as Astrazeneca and the makers of a largely untested Russian vaccine, but has yet to sign any agreements beyond Covax.
The PA hopes to vaccinate 20 per cent of the population through Covax, beginning with health workers. “The remainder will depend on Palestine purchasing from the global supply, and we are working with several companies,” he said.
The Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, told a news conference yesterday that “the arrival of sufficient quantities of the vaccine that will enable us to vaccinate the masses will not be earlier than months from today”.
Physicians for Human RightsIsrael, a group that advocates for more equitable healthcare, says Israel has a legal obligation as an occupying power to purchase and distribute vaccines to the Palestinians.
“Israel still maintains control over many aspects of the Palestinians’ lives, whether checkpoints, importing goods and medication, and controlling themovement of people,” said Ghada Majadle, the director of the group’s activities in the Palestinian territories.
“The Palestinian health system, whether in thewest Bank or the Gaza Strip, is in dire condition, mainly (because of ) restrictions imposed by Israel.” AP