Back to Contents The news and information services company Thomson Reuters wrote in March 2021 that: “Lebanon has also committed to providing COVID-19 vaccines to about 1.2 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees living within its borders in a process being overseen by U.N. agencies. So far, only a small number of them have been vaccinated. The vaccine roll-out has been overshadowed by favouritism towards the well-connected, inspiring little confidence that marginalized groups will end up getting the jab, said Farah Baba of local human rights NGO the Anti-Racism Movement.” (Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation News “No papers, no jab: Lebanon’s migrants face barriers to COVID-19 vaccination”, 1 March 2021) Communicable diseases other than Covid-19 6.5. Are other communicable diseases affecting stateless Palestinians in Lebanon? Walaa Kayyal, a researcher who lives herself as a Palestinian in Lebanon who was interviewed for this report also confirmed the recent spread of Hepatitis but indicated that it did not concern Palestinians or Syrians specifically: “Hepatitis A is a communicable disease spread through water. The more polluted the environment you reside in, higher the risk you will get hepatitis A. For Lebanese, they live in bigger houses with better infrastructures but are still getting hepatitis A because their water comes from the same source. Let me give you an example. Last month we went to my mother, who is Lebanese and lives in a village. My brother got hepatitis A from there. My uncle, who is rich and lives in a mini villa, also got hepatitis A, because the water is polluted. But from a public health perspective, when you are more vulnerable, it means you are living in a harsher situation, in a harsher environment where access to services is minimal. When the services are available, they are of a bad quality. So a person who is living in a luxurious place getting hepatitis A and a person who is living in a camp or an informal settlement can both get hepatitis A but the risk of the second and the third are higher than for the first.” (Source: Walaa Kayyal, interview record, 31 October 2022) Walaa Kayyal, a researcher who lives herself as a Palestinian in Lebanon who was interviewed for this report also mentioned cases of Cholera: “We have cholera now in Lebanon. However the Lebanese government is not openly saying how many cases there are and where they are concentrated. As usual, they are blaming the Syrians for transmitting cholera to the country. They say that all the cholera cases are concentrated among Syrians. So you will never know unless you contract it. When COVID-19 hit the country, the Lebanese government also said that it was among Syrians, that they brought it to the country, etc. Then the number of COVID-19 infections started rising and rising and they started to collect data on the nationality, place of residence and age of those infected. So now we have cholera, but I cannot tell you how bad the epidemic is. Until now I heard of 300-something cholera cases and maybe up to 13 deaths from cholera. But I cannot tell you where this is actually concentrated because the Lebanese government does not communicate.” (Source: Walaa Kayyal, interview record, 31 October 2022) The Jordanian political economist and long-time commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue Riad Al Khouri who was interviewed for this report in October 2022 shared his concerns about the spread of a cholera outbreak from Syria to Lebanon: “There is now a major problem with an outbreak of cholera in Syria. This happened over the last few weeks. The reason for this outbreak is due to polluted water. The water is not clean. This is partly because of the fighting in Syria and the situation of violence and militias and foreign armies and so forth, partly because of the gradual breakdown of public services that has been going on now for decades... [...]” (Source: Riad Al Khouri, interview record, 7 October 2022) 6. Access to health care 67