Following the launch of Israel's campaign to vaccinate children against coronavirus, one of the most influential rabbis in Haredi circles called on parents Thursday to vaccinate their children.
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Senior health officials arrived at Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky's residence in Bnei Brak to discuss vaccine safety and ways to encourage vaccination among ultra-Orthodox children.
Among those who attended the meeting were Coronavirus Commissioner Salman Zarka, expert epidemiologist Professor Ran Balicer, and Kanievsky's personal physician, Dr. Meshulam Hart.
Zarka presented Kanievsky with the Food and Drug Administration approval for the children's vaccine, as well as data on efficacy and safety. He also stressed that the Health Ministry had recently reported a rise in coronavirus morbidity, with unvaccinated children comprising most of the new cases.
Balicer, who is director of Health Policy Planning at Clalit Health Fund, demonstrated post-vaccination data on millions of children in the United States and recent studies conducted in Israel and worldwide on the safety of children's vaccines, that showed that the risks of getting infected with the virus outweighed the potential side effects of inoculation.
Hart also spoke out in support of the shots.
Having carefully studied the data, Kanievsky ruled that children ages of five-11 should be vaccinated, and wished experts success in the national campaign.
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