Coronavirus in Israel: Palestinian workers to receive Moderna vaccines

Palestinians who work in Israel are expected to be inoculated with Moderna vaccines, a senior health fund official told The Jerusalem Post.

On February 19, several senior Israel health officials visited with their Palestinian counterparts in Ramallah to evaluate the situation there with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Understanding that Israel and the Palestinians live in one area and that an outbreak of COVID-19 among the Palestinian Authority may also affect the infection rate among Israeli residents, senior ministry officials visited with the PA Health Ministry and received a briefing on the coronavirus situation in the PA, morbidity data and the epidemiological investigations that are taking place,” the ministry said in a statement following the visit.

Shortly thereafter, Palestinian Health Ministry officials said that they had struck a deal with Israel to inoculate some 100,000 Palestinians who work in Israel. 

The Health Ministry has not confirmed the report nor provided the details for how these workers would get the jab.

The Post learned that the plan was to use Moderna vaccines to accomplish this goal.

Israel received around 100,000 doses of the vaccine from Moderna at the beginning of last month but has yet to use many of them. Instead, according to a spokesperson for the ministry, they have been sitting at the logistics unit of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries near Ben-Gurion Airport.

The reason cited by the spokesperson is pure logistics: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are stored at different temperatures, distributed in different amounts and at different intervals apart.

Some 5,000 Moderna vaccines were committed to the PA to inoculate its healthcare workers, of which only 2,000 have been delivered.

On Sunday, Israel is expected to receive another 175,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, and another 700,000 during the months of March and April. 

In total, Israel ordered six million doses of the Moderna vaccine – enough to inoculate six million people. 

Israel struck a deal with Pfizer to receive a steady flow of vaccines to inoculate the Israeli population and has thus fat jabbed close to five million Israelis with at least one shot. Fears that the country was running out of vaccines were allayed at the end of last week when Pfizer agreed to extend its agreement so Israel could complete its mass vaccination campaign.

“I have some important news,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last Tuesday during a state memorial ceremony for Yosef Trumpeldor and his comrades who fell in defense of Tel Hai. “I spoke last night with my friend, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and we agreed that there would be a supply chain of Pfizer vaccines without any shortage – no shortage, no interruption, no break. Go get vaccinated.”

The senior health fund official told the Post that Pfizer health funds were told Pfizer would continue supplying Israel with vaccines for the next four weeks and that another shipment of vaccines was expected to arrive within the next two weeks. He was unsure how many vaccines were coming and in how many shipments.

He added that it is possible that Palestinians will now receive the Pfizer vaccines, given the new deal, but “as far as I know” Moderna is still the plan.