Israel is planning a second round of COVID-19 vaccination in six months, by which point it expects children to be approved by health regulators to receive jabs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
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Around 81% of Israeli citizens or residents over 16 – the age group eligible for the Pfizer vaccine in Israel – have received both doses in one of the world's fastest rollouts.
Israel has said it plans to administer vaccines to 12- to 15-year-olds upon approval by the US Food and Drug Administration. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech requested emergency FDA authorization earlier this month for use in that age group.
In televised remarks on Tuesday, Netanyahu said Israel had agreed with Pfizer and Moderna to buy 16 million more doses for the country's 9.3 million population, adding: "We are preparing for another vaccination campaign in six months time."
"Get your shoulders ready and your muscles, if you want, and also the kids, because we estimate there will be approved vaccines by then, for children," he added.
Inoculating children and young people is considered a critical step toward reaching herd immunity and taming the pandemic, according to many experts. Pfizer says its vaccine is safe, effective and produces robust antibody responses in 12- to 15-year-olds.
Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla has said that people will "likely" need a third booster shot of the drug maker's two-dose vaccine within 12 months and could need annual shots.
Israel, meanwhile, has registered eight cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in India and believes that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is at least partially effective against it, a Health Ministry official said on Tuesday.
An initial seven cases of the Indian variant were detected in Israel last week among people arriving from abroad and who have since undergone preliminary testing, the Health Ministry said.
"The impression is that the Pfizer vaccine has efficacy against it, albeit a reduced efficacy," the ministry's director-general, Hezi Levy, told Kan public radio, saying the number of cases of the variant in Israel now stood at eight.
The novel variant, designated B.1.617, was reported by India's health ministry in late March. It contains an E484K mutation, which has been associated with immune escape by other variants, and another mutation known as L425R, which may increase its transmissibility.
Britain and Ireland have also said they are investigating the variant after detecting it within their borders.
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