Palestinians to purchase 4.5 million vaccine doses

The Palestinian Authority will purchase 4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine against the coronavirus and another 500,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. The deals amounting to $27.5 million were announced by the PA on Tuesday. The announcement comes a day after reports that the Palestinians received 72,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX initiative to provide vaccines to poorer countries. Some 43,000 of the vaccines were given to the PA for the West Bank, and 28,800 to Hamas in Gaza. The vaccines arrived at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv and were transferred to Nablus and Gaza.