Jerusalem: Palestinian health authority launched a vaccination drive for students in the Gaza Strip aged 16-18 as the region believes the third wave of Koronavirus infection.
Health officials began to provide a Pfizer vaccine at Gaza strip school on Wednesday and aimed to autoculate more than 100,000 students in the coming weeks.
Palestinian officials in the West Bank were occupied starting a similar drive on Tuesday.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported six deaths and more than 1,400 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, the highest number since the wave of new infections began in August.
Less than half the West Bank population has received the first vaccine dose, and about 15% of the Gaza population has shot first.
Palestine received 500,000 doses of last week’s moderna vaccine contributed by the United States through Covax, a global vaccine sharing initiative to distribute vaccines to poor countries.
The Palestinian Authority and the Hamas militant group in power Gaza have worked to secure their own vaccine equipment, partly through Covax and donations from other countries.
But the area remains far behind the neighbor of Israel, which has the world’s leading vaccination drive.