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The New Arab Webinar Series: Vaccinating MENA Against COVID-19

The New Arab Webinar Series: Vaccinating MENA Against COVID-19

Wed, 27 Jan 2021, 5 to 6 pm Greenwich Mean Time (UTC±0)

Register here.

The MENA region has been grappling with the spread of COVID-19 for almost a year now, with many recently experiencing a dramatic surge in cases and overwhelmed hospitals. With many rich countries now rushing to approve and deploy vaccines successfully developed and trialed earlier in 2020, the race for vaccination has exposed existing global inequalities that could leave behind those most vulnerable, bringing to the forefront issues of access in healthcare and the fragility of health care systems worldwide.

This is particularly true in the MENA region, where the effects of multiple emergencies have rendered health systems dysfunctional and inadequate. The arrival of the pandemic has pushed these services to the brink. Some countries in the region have opted to deploy vaccines developed with lower transparency standards by Russia and China, some have focused efforts on securing deals with Western pharmaceutical companies from early on, and others have found themselves at the mercy of international organizations and humanitarian initiatives to immunize their citizens.

Join us as we explore issues surrounding equal and transparent vaccine roll-out in the context of conflict, refugee crises and occupation. Our speakers will discuss the politics of vaccines and policy considerations for vaccine roll-out in MENA, prospects for conflict and emergency affected populations, and Israel’s refusal to vaccinate Palestinians living under its occupation.

The event is free but registration is required.

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Speakers:

Professor Fadi El-Jardali (PhD, MPH) is a recognized senior expert with extensive international and regional experience and multidisciplinary background in health policy, systems and management. He is a Professor of Health Systems and Policy, Founder & Director of the Knowledge to Policy (K2P) Center; Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice; Co-Director of the Center for Systematic Reviews in Health Policy and Systems Research (SPARK); and co-lead for the Global Evidence Synthesis Initiative (GESI) Secretariat at the American University of Beirut. .He is also the Co-Editor in Chief for Health Research, Policy and Systems (HARPS) Journal.

Tammam Aloudat is a medical doctor and a public health practitioner from Syria. He has worked in medical humanitarian action for the past twenty years for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and Doctors Without Borders (MSF). He worked on the ground in conflicts such as Syria, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Iraq. He also worked in epidemics and outbreaks such as cholera, measles, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and others. His current focus now in his work for MSF Access Campaign is making life-saving medicines and vaccines available and affordable for people in low-resource and crisis situations.

Yara M. Asi, PhD, is a Post-doctoral Scholar at the University of Central Florida and a 2021-2023 US Fulbright Scholar to the West Bank. Her research agenda focuses on global health and development in fragile and conflict-affected populations and she has presented at multiple national and international conferences on topics related to global health, food security, health informatics, and women in healthcare, and published in journal articles, book chapters, and other outlets. Dr. Asi has a book forthcoming with Johns Hopkins University Press about the threats war and conflict pose to public health and human security.

Moderator:

Narjas Zatat is a journalist who has worked on several national publications including The Independent and Metro Online. She has written about US and British politics and covered refugee crises in Europe, as well as social affairs, including the impact of discrimination on minority communities in the UK. Currently she is a reporter for The New Arab and her areas of interest include women’s rights in the MENA, cyber warfare, diaspora culture and the environment.

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ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR?
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