State of Palestine: First batch of Russian "Sputnik V" COVID vaccines arrives in Gaza

Flip_flop_politics
Published on Feb 17, 2021
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The first batch of Russian 'Sputnik V' coronavirus vaccines arrived in Gaza City on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Health in Ramallah had sent 2,000 vaccine doses in refrigerated trucks through the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, these were then placed in the appropriate cold storage by the ministry ahead of the expected distribution on Sunday morning, according to spokesperson Ashraf Al Qidra.

Al Qidra noted that the vaccine would initially be "allocated ot the groups most at risk," listing organ transplant patients, dialysis patients, and the elderly as primary vaccination priority groups, while he also explained that more vaccines were expected to arrive tomorrow.

"Upon the arrival of additional quantities vaccines, these will be expanded to more groups who will receive this vaccine during the coming period, including the medical staff that work around the clock in the face of this epidemic," he explained.

The shipment of vaccines into the tightly controlled Gaza Strip has not been a straightforward process, with the vaccines reportedly having been blocked the right of entry at an Israeli checkpoint earlier this week.

Israeli authorities have been criticised over their COVID-19 vaccination programme, which while on one hand has received praise for the number of doses administered to the general Israeli population, has not done enough to encompass the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Earlier in February, Israel agreed to donate 5,000 Moderna vaccine doses to Palestine's health workers.

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SOT, Ashraf Al Qidra, Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson (Arabic): "A quantity of up to 2000 doses of the Russian vaccine arrived to the health stores in the Gaza Strip coming from the Ministry of Health in the West Bank, and this amount that has arrived will be allocated to the groups most at risk, which are organ transplant patients, as well as kidney failure patients, especially the elderly, and upon the arrival of additional quantities vaccines, these will be expanded to more groups who will receive this vaccine during the coming period, including the medical staff that work around the clock in the face of this epidemic."

SOT, Ashraf Al Qidra, Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson (Arabic): "We expect that an additional quantity of vaccines will be received, perhaps tomorrow, arriving through the crossing to raise a new quantity of vaccines, and we expect additional quantities to arrive from the COVAX Foundation. This will give comfort to medical staff to expand the number of target groups of these vaccines."

SOT, Ashraf Al Qidra, Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson (Arabic): "We will start the vaccination next Sunday morning and will continue until the end of the categories that have been allocated."

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