Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) WHO Situation Report 76

Coronavirus disease 2019?(COVID-19) Situation Report 76

Issued 3 June?2021

Highlights

Two weeks after escalations subside?across?the occupied Palestinian territory, COVID-19 case numbers?in Gaza?shoot up,?largely due to the resumption in testing which had completely ceased
West Bank numbers continue to decline?finally?giving hospitals some breathing space
More vaccines arrive?in oPt:?in the last week, 72,000?doses of?AstraZeneca and nearly 103,000?doses of?Pfizer.

COVAX delivers again!?

The global COVAX facility headed by WHO and partners Gavi, CEPI and UNICEF delivered yet more vaccines to oPt this week:?72,000 AstraZeneca vaccines arrived in?Ben Gurion airport late on Tuesday 1 June 2021, and the following day?62,400 doses found their way to the Nablus cold store in West Bank, while?9,600 doses?have since been delivered to?Gaza. More?will go to Gaza from the West Bank shipment soon.

This batch follows the delivery of 102,960 doses of Pfizer vaccines the previous week.

WHO preparedness, readiness and response

WHO continues to work closely with partners to support Ministry of Health’s (MoH) efforts to respond to the COVID-19?outbreak.

Coordination,?planning?and monitoring?

The state of emergency over COVID-19 decreed by President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank has been extended for a further 30 days,?starting?from?Wednesday 2?June
Also on?2 June,?WHO,?along?with?MoH, co-chaired?a meeting of the?Health?sub-Cluster in Gaza Strip, to?update partners on the health situation?and new emerging needs, including those related to COVID-19?emergency,?following the recent military?escalation.

Surveillance

The WHO risk assessment remains?high:?COVID-19?infections in the Gaza Strip have jumped higher in the wake of the recent escalations and as testing resumes; active new cases now account for a significant majority of?all?cases in the oPt, at 84%
In the West Bank,?cases?have halved from the previous week,?while testing has increased with positivity staying low?for a second week?at around 5%
The breakdown of active COVID-19 cases across the oPt is as follows:?Gaza Strip (84.4%), followed by?the West Bank governorates of Nablus (4.6%), Jenin (3.2%), Ramallah (2%), Tulkarm and Hebron both (1.5%), Bethlehem (0.8%) and Qalqilya, Tubas and Jericho all?(0.4%)
The overall Case Fatality Rate (CFR)?across oPt?remains at?1.1 %.?The CFR is the proportion of?deathsly?among identified confirmed?cases.

Laboratory testing and diagnostics

The number of tests conducted in the oPt has decreased by?3% during the reporting period (28?May?–?3?June), with?17,175?tests?conducted
Since the beginning of the military hostilities in the Gaza Strip, COVID-19?testing has been limited to symptomatic people reporting to hospitals.?An average of 1,148 tests per day have been conducted over the past week (28?May?– 3 June) with a positivity rate of?25%
WHO has assigned simple, easy to say and remember labels for key variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, using letters of the Greek alphabet. See the new labels here:?

Infection Prevention and Control (IPC), Isolation and Case Management, Operations Support and Logistics?

The?overall occupancy rate of COVID-19 dedicated hospital beds in the?Gaza Strip is?24%, with?106?of?441?beds occupied.?Currently,?14?of the?41?Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds?(34%) are?occupied. No patients are on mechanical ventilation
The medical response situation?in the West Bank?has improved significantly: ICU bed occupancy?is?sharply?lower at?26%?(23 ICU beds out of 90?occupied) – and just three patients are now?on ventilators?compared to 40 three weeks ago.

Risk Communications and Community Engagement

Health Promoters in Gaza educate?worshippers?in mosques about vaccination

WHO?is working in collaboration with local health authorities?in Gaza to?raise the awareness of?worshippers?and their families?about the importance of getting vaccinated.

Ten health promoters?working across the five Gaza governorates received refresher training?sessions on facts, statistics and scientific-based?data about COVID-19?and vaccines in general, before attending?mosques and disseminating health awareness messages.

COVID-19 Vaccination Update

Latest Vaccine Arrivals

On?2?June,?COVAX delivered?72,000?AstraZeneca?vaccines, of which?62,400 doses?went to?the Nablus cold?store?in West Bank, and?9,600 doses?to Gaza. More?doses?are due to?arrive?in Gaza from the West Bank shipment?in time.
One week previously, on 25 May, the?third COVAX shipment arrived in oPt: 102,960 doses of?Pfizer vaccines, of which 56,160 doses went to?West Bank and 46,800 doses?to?Gaza
10,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccines previously allocated for Gaza finally got clearance?to cross into the Strip on?21 May 2021
And another 10,000 doses of?Sinopharm vaccines also arrived in Gaza donated from Jordan

Numbers of Vaccinated (as of 2 June 2021)

344,260?people have been vaccinated in total across the oPt:?304,323?in?the West Bank?(excluding East Jerusalem), and?39,937?in Gaza.?These figures represent around 7%?of the total Palestinian?population
Of these numbers, the total who have received their second dose?are?228,083?in the oPt overall?(excluding East Jerusalem)
The circa?110,000 Palestinian workers who have been vaccinated by Israel are included in the total numbers of vaccinated stated?above
Health authorities?in the Gaza Strip?have?expanded vaccination capacity by increasing the number of?vaccination centers?to a total of 25 centers, including nine operated by UNRWA, and 16?by?MoH.

Global Vaccine News

On 1 June,?WHO?approved?China’s Sinovac?Covid-19?vaccine for emergency use, the second Chinese?vaccine to receive the WHO’s green light.?‘ConoraVac’?is a two-dose vaccine?already being developed in several?countries around the world ()