RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) – Israel will begin rolling out a major coronavirus vaccination campaign next week after the prime minister personally reached out to the head of a major pharmaceutical company. Millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control will have to wait much longer.
All over the world, rich nations are getting scarce supplies of new vaccines, as poor countries depend heavily on a World Health Organization program that has not yet begun.. There are few places where competition takes place closer than in Israel and the territories it has occupied for more than half a century.
Next year could lead to a sharp divergence in the trajectory of the pandemic, which until now freely ignored national borders and political enmities in the Middle East. Israelis could soon return to normal life and economic recovery, although the virus continues to threaten Palestinian towns and villages just a few miles away.
Israel reached an agreement with pharmaceutical company Pfizer to supply 8 million doses of its newly approved vaccine, enough to cover nearly half of Israel’s 9 million population, as each person requires two doses. This came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally contacted Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla several times, presuming that at some point he was able to reach the CEO at two in the morning.
Israel has mobile vaccination units with refrigerators that can keep Pfizer shots at the required lows of 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit). He plans to start vaccinations as early 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 buy 6 million doses of its vaccine, enough for another 3 million Israelis.
Israel’s vaccination campaign will include Jewish settlers living far inland in the West Bank, who are Israeli citizens, but not the territory’s 2.5 million Palestinians.
They will have to wait for the Palestinian Authority, which sends cash, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank in accordance with the interim peace agreements reached in the 1990s. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, territories that Palestinians are looking for for their future state, in the 1967 Middle East war.
The PA hopes to obtain vaccines through a WHO-led partnership with humanitarian organizations known as COVAX, which aims to provide free vaccines to up to 20% of the population in poor countries, many of which have been particularly affected by the pandemic.
But the program has only secured a fraction of the 2 billion doses it expects to buy over the next year, it has not yet confirmed any real offer and lack of cash. Rich countries have already set aside about 9 billion of the estimated 12 billion doses the pharmaceutical industry plans to produce next year.
The fact that the Palestinians only have one refrigeration unit, in the city of Jericho, which is capable of storing the Pfizer vaccine, is complicated. They are among about 3 billion people worldwide for whom the lack of adequate cooling capacity could be a major obstacle.
Dr. Ali Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian health official, said the Palestinian Authority is in talks with Pfizer and Moderna (whose vaccines require extra-cold storage), as well as with AstraZeneca and the manufacturers of a Russian vaccine largely untested, but has not yet signed any agreement beyond COVAX.
The PA expects 20% of the population to be vaccinated through COVAX, starting with health workers, he said. “The rest will depend on Palestinian purchases with global supply and we are working with several companies,” he said.
Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have struggled to contain their outbreaks, which have fed each other as people travel back and forth, mostly tens of thousands of Palestinian workers employed in Israel.. Israel has reported more than 350,000 cases, including more than 3,000 deaths.
The Palestinian Authority has reported more than 85,000 cases in the West Bank, including more than 800 deaths, and the outbreak has intensified in recent weeks. The situation is even worse in Gaza, home to 2 million Palestinians, which has been under Israeli and Egyptian blockade since the Hamas militant group took power in 2007. Authorities there have reported more than 30,000 cases, including 220 dead.
With the Hamas rulers of Gaza shunned by the international community, the territory will also depend on the Palestinian Authority. This means that it could take several months before large-scale vaccinations are carried out in the poor coastal strip.
Dr Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the WHO office for the Palestinian territories, said the PA will provide vaccines in Gaza, but they will arrive in batches and it will take up to the first 20%. “We hope that at some point in the first quarter of next year the first vaccines will start arriving,” he said.
Israeli Deputy Minister of Health Yoav Kisch told Kan Radio that Israel was working to get a surplus of vaccines for Israelis and that “if we see that Israel’s demands have been met and we have additional capacity, we are sure that we will consider helping the Palestinian Authority. ” He said doing so would help prevent a resurgence of outbreaks in Israel.
Dr Ashi Shalmon, an official with the Israeli Ministry of Health, said his approach was in line with past agreements. The Oslo Accords require the PA to maintain international vaccination standards and for the parties to exchange information and cooperate in the fight against epidemics.
Israel, which intends to begin inoculating health workers and nursing home residents, plans to issue special “passports” to vaccinated people, exempt them from restrictions and pave the way for the reactivation of travel and trade.
But the pandemic would continue to escalate in Palestinian cities such as Bethlehem, where hotels and shops have been empty for months and Christmas celebrations have been canceled mainly – even when the feeling of normalcy is restored in Israel and nearby settlements.
Still, tens of thousands of Palestinians work in Israel and in the settlements. Potentially, they could transfer the virus to unvaccinated Israelis, slowing the Israeli path to herd immunity, at which point the virus can no longer spread easily.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, a group that advocates for more equitable health care, says Israel has a legal obligation as an employment power to buy and distribute vaccines to Palestinians. He says Israel must also ensure that vaccines that do not meet its own safety guidelines, such as the Russian shot, are not distributed in areas under its control.
“Israel still maintains control of many aspects of Palestinian life, whether it is checkpoints, importation of goods and medicines and control of the movement of people,” said Ghada Majadle, the group’s director of activities in the Palestinian territories.
“The Palestinian health system, whether in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, is in appalling conditions, mainly (because of) the restrictions imposed by Israel.”
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Associated Press writers Jelal Hassan in Ramallah, the West Bank, Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem, and Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.