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Coronavirus disease 2021?(COVID-19) Situation Report 85

Monthly issue:?19?November to 23 December 2021

Highlights

• New?COVID-19 infections?are registered leading to an increase in the number of cases across?oPt.?Gaza Strip leads by ratio of?42.1% of all active cases, while?Ramallah?takes?the?lead in?number?of cases in the West Bank (15.2%)
• Positivity?in the oPt?is increasing?(6.93 in West Bank and 11.3 in Gaza Strip)?Rt?is currently at 1.03

• Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) declared on 21 December registration of 6 Omicron cases in the West Bank, no cases registered yet in Gaza. MoH also said that the necessary kits for Omicron tests are now available in the West Bank.

WHO preparedness, readiness and response

WHO continues to work closely with partners to support?the?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?continues?to be renewed on monthly basis.

• Implementation of third ‘booster’ dose to medical staff and priority groups such as?children between 12-15 years old?(in the West Bank),?elderly and sick?continues.

Surveillance

• Amidst?the?fourth?COVID-19?wave in the West?Bank and the third wave in the Gaza Strip,?the?overall?number of active cases is?4,019?COVID-19?cases?detected?across the?oPt.?Infections in the Gaza?Strip?still?account for?most of?all?cases,?around?42%.
• In the West Bank,?numbers of?cases?is?increasing?(2,326), with?6%?positivity rate?over the reporting period?(18 November?to?23 December?2021).

• In the Gaza Strip,?positivity continues to decrease,?with an average of?13.4%, during the reporting period.
• The overall Case Fatality Rate (CFR)?across oPt?remains at 1%. The CFR is the proportion of deaths among identified confirmed cases.

Laboratory testing and diagnostics

• The number of tests conducted in the oPt?over?the?reporting period is 133,689?tests,?with?an overall positivity of?7.5%.?In the Gaza Strip,?an average of?778?tests took place per day?while the?average?in the West Bank was?3,432?tests per day.

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

• In the West Bank, hospitals continue to respond to COVID-19?situation?accordingly: ICU bed occupancy?is?58%?with?54?ICU beds occupied out of?93,?and?14?patients on ventilators.

• In the Gaza Strip, the overall bed occupancy is at 17%,?with 69 out of a total of 410 hospital beds currently occupied.?The number of patients admitted to?ICU?is also increasing,?with 21 patients currently occupying a total capacity of 80 beds?(26%), including two patients on mechanical ventilation.

Maintaining?essential services

Mass casualty?management training

In a?pro-active support to build the capacity of?the public health system to manage large?numbers of casualties at the same time beyond the system’s usual capacity the World?Health?Organization (WHO) completed the first of a series of Mass Casualty Management training for Shifa hospital’s emergency department in Gaza, the first of its kind in in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).

EENC two day coaching session in 5 NGO hospitals in Gaza

During the period from November 20th?and December 20th, two days coaching sessions on Early Essential Newborn Care (EENC) were conducted in 5 NGO maternity hospitals. The coaching aims at scaling up early essential newborn care, and was conducted in collaboration with MoH EENC team, and targeted 35 medical staff including 19 midwives and 6 doctors. These coaching sessions were organized under the umbrella of the AFD funded project?“Strengthening Maternal, Neonatal and Young Children Health (MNCH) in Gaza” implemented jointly with UNICEF and UNFPA.

Italian Agency for?the?development cooperation to support reducing avoidable diseases

With a total budget of?5 million?EUR?the project will contribute to the strengthening?of the Palestinian health system in terms of reducing avoidable disease, death and disability,?The project will operate over a period of three years with interventions at the three levels of care including pre-hospital, hospital and tertiary care. WHO will work closely with the Ministry of Health, the Palestinian Red Crescent and a number of local NGOs throughout the lifetime of the project and expect to target 230,000 beneficiaries across?oPt.

COVID-19 Vaccination Update

Vaccination?Numbers / News (as of 22 December)

• 1,779,198?people have been vaccinated in total across the oPt:?1,247,070?in the West Bank, and?532,128?in Gaza.
• Of these numbers,?a?total?of?1,528,860?are?fully vaccinated:?1,108,509?in West Bank, and?420,351?in Gaza.

• Administering?of third?“booster dose” of the vaccine?for priority groups is ongoing across the oPt?(172,374?in total).??in West Bank?146,600?doses were administered?and?25,774?in Gaza.

More local information

Situation in the Eastern?Mediterranean?Region and Globally?

Latest WHO advice and health information:

For updated WHO Publications and Technical Guidance on COVID-19, click??

Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO oPt Head of Office, peeperkornr@who.int
Dr. David Lai,?WHO oPt Emergencies Team Lead, laidavid@who.int
Raghda AbuShahla, Communication Officer, Gaza, abushahlar@who.int
Kazem Abu Khalaf, Communication Officer, Jerusalem, kabu@who.int