GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza says it has received 50,000 expired Covid-19 vaccine doses sent by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. It blamed the Zionist regime for the fact that the vaccine’s effectiveness had expired.
According to the ministry, the Sputnik vaccines entered Gaza through Karm Abu Salem Crossing and were tested before they were scheduled for use. “After checking and testing the vaccines, we found that they had expired,” said officials. “Hence, it was decided to destroy the whole shipment.”
The statement reiterated that all the currently available vaccines are valid and safe as they are being stored and used properly. It was the lack of proper storage by the Zionists which meant that the Sputnik doses had passed their expiry date before they reached Gaza. “Israel also hindered the delivery of the vaccine,” added the ministry.
It concluded by calling on national and international health and welfare bodies to work urgently to get additional vaccine doses to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a strict Zionist blockade for fifteen years.
In other COVID-related news, a total of 11.2 percent of children in the Israeli-occupied territories who recovered from COVID-19 suffered long-term symptoms, according to a survey issued by the regime’s ministry of health on Monday.
The researchers examined post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), or “long COVID,” among 13,834 parents of children aged 3-18 who had recovered from the coronavirus, and found that 11.2 percent of the recovered children in the occupied territories had long-term symptoms.
They also noted that the chance of having long-term symptoms grows with the age of the child. Thus, 1.8 percent of children aged 3-6 years had long-term symptoms six months after recovery, compared with 4.6 percent among age of 12 to 18.
A correlation was found between symptomatic COVID-19 illness and the possibility of suffering long-term symptoms.
Among adolescents aged 12-18 who were symptomatic patients, 5.6 percent had long COVID, compared with 3.5 percent among those who were asymptomatic when tested positive.