RAMALLAH, Minister of Health Mai Alkaila said today that Palestine is scheduled to start receiving one million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in gradual batches starting the coming days. She said the doses will be preserved and administered to the public as per the safety measures recommended by the manufacturer and the World Health Organization, and as per the health protocols of the Ministry.

She added in a statement that Palestine had received an offer from Pfizer to urgently obtain about one million Pfizer COVID-19 doses from Israel, provided that the manufacturer, at the end of this year, will hand over the same amount to the Israeli side that was initially supposed to be allocated to Palestine prior to the aforementioned Pfizer offer.

Alkaila pointed out that the Palestinian government has signed the contract and paid for the one million Pfizer doses at the expense of the public budget, as announced by Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh during the cabinet session earlier this week.

‘‘After studying the company’s offer, and in light of the great global demand for vaccines by the countries of the world, and in order to speed up the vaccination process and reach community immunity by vaccinating about 70% of the population as soon as possible, it was approved to obtain about one million Pfizer doses from the Israeli side, provided that Pfizer will return the same amount to the Israeli side from Palestine’s share at the end of this year,’’ she said.

Alkaila continued: ‘‘About half a million citizens have been vaccinated against COVID-19, and we’re able to vaccinate about 80,000 citizens on a daily basis in more than 90 vaccination centers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.’’ She stressed that all technical aspects related to vaccinations were audited by a specialized technical committee of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which tests the and safety of the vaccine.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency