Israel on Monday said it asked the US government to help it get access to Pfizer's potential COVID-19 vaccine.
Earlier in the day, Pfizer said its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective, a major victory in the fight against a pandemic that has killed more than a million people, battered the world's economy, and upended daily life.
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Finance Minister Israel Katz said he had discussed the vaccine during talks with US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
"I asked Mnuchin for help in supplying the vaccine to Israel in parallel with its supply to the United States, as part of an agreement signed between the US administration and the company for the immediate delivery of 600 million doses," Katz said in a statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it an important day in the fight against the pandemic and said "the end is in sight. My goal at the moment is to do one thing – to bring vaccines to you citizens of Israel, and we will do so," he said.
Israel already has an agreement with Moderna for the future purchase of its potential COVID-19 vaccine and has been in talks with other companies as well.
It has also started human trials on its own vaccine candidate.
Pfizer said Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine may be a remarkable 90% effective, based on early and incomplete test results that nevertheless brought a big burst of optimism to a world desperate for the means to finally bring the catastrophic outbreak under control.
The announcement came less than a week after an election seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump's handling of the scourge, which has killed more than 1.2 million people worldwide, including almost a quarter-million in the United States alone.
"We're in a position potentially to be able to offer some hope," Dr. Bill Gruber, Pfizer's senior vice president of clinical development, told The Associated Press. "We're very encouraged."
Pfizer, which is developing the vaccine with its German partner BioNTech, now is on track to apply later this month for emergency-use approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, once it has the necessary safety information in hand.
Even if all goes well, authorities have stressed it is unlikely any vaccine will arrive much before the end of the year, and the limited initial supplies will be rationed.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US government's top infectious-disease expert, said the results suggesting 90% effectiveness are "just extraordinary," adding, "Not very many people expected it would be as high as that."
"It's going to have a major impact on everything we do with respect to COVID," Fauci said as Pfizer appeared to take the lead in the all-out global race by pharmaceutical companies and various countries to develop a well-tested vaccine against the virus.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, the World Health Organization's senior adviser, said Pfizer's vaccine could "fundamentally change the direction of this crisis" by March, when the UN agency hopes to start vaccinating high-risk groups.
Still, Monday's announcement doesn't mean for certain that a vaccine is imminent: This interim analysis, from an independent data monitoring board, looked at 94 infections recorded so far in a study that has enrolled nearly 44,000 people in the US and five other countries.
Dr. Jesse Goodman of Georgetown University, former chief of the FDA's vaccine division, called the partial results "extremely promising" but ticked off many questions still to be answered, including how long the vaccine's effects last and whether it protects older people as well as younger ones.
Confirmed infections in the US eclipsed 10 million on Monday, the highest in the world. New cases are running at all-time highs of more than 100,000 per day. And tens of thousands more deaths are feared in the coming months, with the onset of cold weather and the holidays.
Pfizer's vaccine is among four candidates already in huge studies in the US, with still more being tested in other countries. Another US company, Moderna, also hopes to file an application with the FDA late this month.
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