Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement addressed to Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz asking to start vaccinating the population over 50 with a third booster already in August, claiming that top experts have told him so. However, speaking to The Jerusalem Post, some experts expressed reservations at the proposals.
After praising the success of his vaccination campaign, Netanyahu said that he had spoken to "some of the best experts in the world" and he believes "that the third vaccine should be given to the adult population (50 and over) in early August in order to complete the task by the end of September." Before his statement however, no prominent health expert in Israel had come out publicly with this suggestion.
“I think it is a bit premature to determine if a third dose is already needed,” Prof. Cyrille Cohen, the head of the immunology lab at Bar-Ilan University said. “We need to gather more data about the current infection and to determine to what extent the vaccine is protecting from symptomatic disease caused by the delta variant - which is the dominant strain now in Israel.”
Cohen explained that based on data from abroad, the mRNA vaccine efficacy lasts longer than months and that it appears that the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine awards some 88% protection against symptomatic disease and 96% from hospitalization.
“Some recent data also show that mRNA vaccines may induce long lived immune response,” Cohen further said. “Also, we do not have experience with repetitive injections and thus, if we are to plan a third dose, it would be better if it were to include an update with the new variants.”
“After gathering more data on the current infections, if we are to detect some reduce effectiveness of the vaccine against the variant, we might be able to plan a third injections,” he concluded.
“The topic deserves further analysis, but probably such a move would be more relevant for those over 80,” Davidovitch said, explaining that there are preliminary indications that the protection to older individuals offered by the vaccine declines faster.
“However, it is under investigation, it will need be to be further discussed,” he noted.