Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent steps his Department has taken to help facilitate access to covid-19 (a) vaccines and (b) other essential healthcare supplies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The UK remains committed to ensuring equitable access to effective vaccines as demonstrated by our £548 million contribution to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) - the international initiative to support global equitable access to vaccines. Through match funding, the commitment was leveraged to encourage other donors to commit $1 billion in 2020. We are pleased that the OPTs will be among the first to benefit from the COVAX AMC scheme, with delivery of a first batch of more than 37,000 doses of the of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine anticipated in mid-February.
The UK has also provided £1.25m funding (WHO with £630,000 and UNICEF with £620,000) to purchase and co-ordinate delivery of medical equipment, treat critical care patients, train frontline health workers, and scale up laboratory testing capacity - mainly in Gaza. We remain in regular, close contact with the Palestinian Authority to discuss their plans for access to safe COVID-19 vaccines in the OPTs.