Israelis over the age of 18 will soon be able to receive the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, The Jerusalem Post confirmed.
Starting July 28, health funds will be able to place orders for the Moderna vaccine, which will then be made available to eligible Israelis beginning August 1, according to a letter sent by the Health Ministry to the health funds. At that point, the Pfizer vaccine will only be administered to those under the age of 18, for whom the Moderna vaccine is not yet approved, and for people who are waiting on their second dose.
Moderna will be delivered to the health funds as individual vials of 10 doses or in sets of 10 vials, meaning up to 100 doses at a time.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both messenger RNA vaccines with few differences between them. The major difference is that the first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine are administered 21 days apart, whereas the Moderna doses are given 28 days apart.
Israel currently has some 200,000 doses of Moderna in storage. In the past, it used Moderna vaccines to inoculate around 120,000 Palestinian workers with permits to enter Israel.
Israel’s Pfizer supply is due to expire on July 31. However, a new shipment of about 100,000 doses is due to arrive on August 1.
To avoid having vaccines go to waste, some two weeks ago the country signed a vaccine exchange deal with South Korea for 700,000 doses.