The vaccine exchange deal with the Israeli occupation authorities again shows the lack of transparency in managing public affairs in general and managing the coronavirus pandemic in particular.
It is illogical that the first source of information in an important issue related to the health of Palestinian citizens is the Israeli occupation.
It is the responsibility of the Palestinian government, represented by the Ministry of Health, to announce the details of the deal before concluding it to enhance the principle of transparency.
The Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN) has called for enhancing transparency during the emergency period as it is the most critical tools for immunizing the process of managing the distribution of vaccine from any abuse or exploitation, by publishing the details of all deals made between governments and suppliers in general, and vaccine suppliers in particular. This matter still suffers from poor dissemination of information so far.
AMAN also stresses the need to announce the measures that will be taken against any official who neglected to verify the integrity of the deal, as they have repeatedly known the bad intentions of the Israeli occupation towards the lives of the Palestinian people, by making sure that the team supervising the deal has done due diligence to examine the integrity and boundaries of the expiry date of the vaccines in the Israeli warehouses, knowing that the general information previously published by the occupation authorities confirms that the vaccines expire during the month of June.
The Pfizer Safety Consortium also holds the intermediary in this deal responsible for this defect. As the Minister of Health indicated during her press conference held yesterday evening, 18/6/2021, Pfizer has serial numbers for all the doses that it has exported and is following them up.
Accordingly, Pfizer also knows that the Israeli vaccinations will soon end, so why did it recommend making this deal, even though it is required to provide due diligence to ensure the safety of vaccines.
The Israeli occupation also bears the greatest responsibility, which refused to provide vaccines to the Palestinians at the stage of the intensification of the crisis and the spread of the epidemic, while now agreeing to an exchange process at a time when its validity is about to expire, in exchange for new vaccines that Pfizer would send to the Palestinians next September.
AMAN expresses its concern about the impact of what happened around the vaccine deal on the extent of citizens’ confidence in the vaccine administration process in general and on the process of citizens’ turnout to receive it.
Consequently, AMAN demands the formation of an independent investigation committee, with the participation of civil society representatives, to investigate the merits of this deal.
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