A new technology, developed by an Israeli company, is aimed to assist decision makers in determining which people should get vaccinated against coronavirus at an early stage before the rest of the population, in a way that will be most effective in stopping the spread of the virus. This Israeli technology was recently filed for a patent in the United Arab Emirates’ patent office.
The global race to develop a safe and effective vaccine against coronavirus is not yet completed. However, some research institutions and pharmaceutical companies are getting pretty close, and it is reasonable to a assume that science is months away from forming a vaccine that would potentially cure the world from COVID-19. But even after the long-awaited vaccine will be announced, it will take years to manufacture, distribute and vaccinate the entire population of the world.
The new patented technology, developed by the Israeli Ehrlich Group, will establish priority guidelines for the vaccination of the population by using data regarding the number of contacts and interactions each individual makes. This way, "super-distributors” will be traced and will be given priority in administering the vaccine.
Dr. Gal Ehrlich, the founder and CEO of Ehrlich group, developed the patent together with Dr. Maier Fenster, the head of the group’s medical devices department. Dr. Ehrlich explains that while there are various known models that establishes priority systems in administering vaccines, none of the existing models can be used in the current coronavirus pandemic because most of the population will be prioritized, making the entire priority model useless. Dr. Gal Ehrlich (photo credit: PR)
The patent is based on the analysis of data collected from the state’s intelligence agencies or alternatively from various apps where users approve the use of their location data. By tracing and vaccinating the super distributors, the chains of transmissions and infections within the community will break, making it possible to illuminate the spread of the virus even before the entire population is vaccinated, saving time and money.
Just before the signing of the historic peace agreement between the state of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Ehrlich group chose to register the patent for this priority system in the UAE’s patent office. According to Dr. Ehrlich, the reason they chose filing for a patent in the UAE is to try and interest commercial and governmental entities with this technology in this area and possibly beyond. This patent registration will most likely create a path for more Israeli inventors to file for a patent in the UAE’s patent office and it marks a new era of new and exciting business opportunities in various industries between Israel and the UAE.
