RAMALLAH, Palestinian Health Minister Mai Alkaila announced today the arrival of 500,000 doses of Moderna coronavirus vaccine through the international COVAX facility of the World Health Organization (WHO) as a donation of the United States.
She said at a press conference in Ramallah in the presence of US, WHO, and UNICEF officials that 300,000 doses will go for the West Bank and 200,000 for the Gaza Strip.
Alkaila thanked the US, WHO, and UNICEF for their support for the Palestinian healthcare sector and called on the public to get vaccinated since the vaccine is currently available for everyone in order to fight the corona pandemic.
“This generous contribution comes at a critical time to reinforce our efforts to address the COVID crisis in Palestine. It will also contribute to increasing the percentage of vaccinated Palestinians, which has reached up to 22.2 percent in Palestine,” said Alkaila.
“We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and bring an end to the pandemic,” US State Department Acting Palestinian Affairs Unit Chief Stacy Barrios said.
In addition to the vaccine doses, the United States has provided approximately $11.5 million in COVID-19 related assistance for the Palestinian people. This includes supporting health facilities throughout the West Bank by providing COVID-19 prevention and care services, training health workers and enhancing facilities to better care for COVID-19 patients, and providing essential medicines.
The United States has trained more than 400 healthcare workers and provided supplies to 14 hospitals across the West Bank to strengthen their life-saving COVID-19 response capacity and ensure that they are able to continue providing essential health care services.
In Gaza, the United States has reached nearly 2,000 households through medical mobile outreach teams who provide care to high-risk individuals to prevent further spread of the virus. The United States has provided infection prevention and control hygiene kits to more than 730 high-risk households (4,257 individuals) to safeguard families against the virus, as well as provided emergency assistance to nearly 1,330 households for the purchase of food and hygiene items needed to ensure their safety and ability to better manage the risk of infection.
Palestine so far received over 2.2 million doses of vaccines from different sources, including 1.7 million bought by the Palestinian government.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency