Bank is urging Israel, which has made the most progress worldwide on vaccination, to deliver the urplus blows.
Palestinians’ COVID-19 vaccination plan is facing a $ 30m funding shortfall, even after receiving support from a global vaccination scheme for poor economies, the World Bank said in a report Monday.
Israel, the world leader in vaccine speed, should consider giving Palestinians extra doses to help accelerate vaccine distribution in the West Bank and Gaza, the bank said.
“To ensure an effective vaccination campaign, the Palestinian and Israeli authorities should coordinate in the financing, purchase and distribution of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines,” he said.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) plans to cover 20 percent of Palestinians through the COVAX vaccine distribution program. PA officials hope to get more vaccines to achieve 60 percent coverage.
Cost estimates suggest that “a total of around $ 55 million would be needed to cover 60 percent of the population, and there is already a $ 30 million gap,” the World Bank said. seek additional help from donors.
The Palestinians launched vaccinations this month and have received small donations from Israel, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.
But the estimated 32,000 doses received so far fall far short of the 5.2 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, an area captured by Israel in a 1967 war.
‘Extra doses’
Palestinians and rights groups have complained that Israel is evading its duties as a proprietary power by not including Palestinians in their inoculation program.
Israeli officials have said that, under the Oslo peace agreements, the PA health ministry is responsible for vaccinating people in Gaza and parts of the West Bank where they have little autonomy.
Israel opened up large segments of its economy on Sunday after it released one of the fastest vaccination programs in the world. It has been administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to its 9.1 million citizens and has a separate stock collection of 100,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine.
Although the PA expects to receive its first COVAX passengers within weeks, the program is in danger of failing, mainly due to lack of funding. The PA says it has supply contracts with Russia and drug dealer AstraZeneca but doses have been slow to arrive.
“From a humanitarian perspective, Israel can consider providing the extra doses it has ordered not to use,” the World Bank said.
Palestinians have launched a limited vaccination campaign with donations from countries including the UAE, which sent Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine to Gaza [File: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]
The PA health ministry said Friday that Israel had approved the vaccination of 100,000 Palestinians who regularly enter Israel for work.
A decision on vaccinating Palestinian workers should be made soon, Dr. Nachman Ash, Israel’s tsar coronavirus, told reporters Sunday.
“From a medical point of view, we believe that vaccinating Palestinian workers is the right thing to do.”