Israel received 100,000 Moderna vaccines last month, enough to inoculate 50,000 people. According to a health ministry spokesman, most are still stored at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries’ logistics unit near Ben-Gurion airport.
With such a relatively small number of Moderna vaccines here, the reason not to launch is purely logistics, the spokesman said. The Jerusalem Post.
For starters, while both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses, Pfizer’s second injection is given 21 days after the first and Moderna’s 28 – a difference that would add a complicating factor to the distribution campaign led by the health funds.
In addition, the vaccines must be stored at different temperatures. Pfizer’s vaccines should be stored around -70 degrees Celsius, while those from Moderna require -30 degrees.
Finally, the vaccines are dosed differently and there is a different number of doses in each vial.
Each dose of Pfizer is 0.3 milliliters and contains 30 micrograms of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, while Moderna’s is a 0.5 ml. dose of 100 micrograms of the vaccine. Each vial of Pfizer’s contains six doses, while each vial of Moderna’s contains 10.
Originally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said the Moderna vaccine would be used to inoculate Israel’s homebound community. However, the Health Ministry said this also turned out to be too complicated.
For now, Magen David Adom and other emergency response teams are transporting these homebound individuals via ambulances to health fund vaccination centers and then returning them home.
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Earlier this month, Israel handed over 2,000 doses of Moderna vaccine to the Palestinian Authority to be used to vaccinate its medical teams. A total of 5,000 vaccines will reportedly be transferred in three more shipments.
The Department of Health has not yet made a final decision on how the rest of the vaccines it has ordered from the US company will be administered, the spokesman said. the mail.
Israel ordered six million Moderna vaccines, enough to vaccinate three million people.
It also has an additional 10 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine on order.
The next large-scale shipment of Moderna is expected to arrive in Israel sometime in March.
Over the weekend, Israel came under pressure over its choice to hold the vaccines instead of handing them over to the PA, which has received 10,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
An article published by Bloomberg accused Israel of “keeping its offer from Moderna Inc.” while “not inoculating the millions of Palestinians under its control.”
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi and Defense Secretary Benny Gantz are expected to approve a request from the PA for the transfer of tens of thousands of vaccine doses to the Gaza Strip in the coming days, Hebrew website Walla reported Sunday, without specifying which brand of vaccines.
Pfizer pledged to provide Israel with as many vaccinations as its citizens need in exchange for providing comprehensive data on the introduction of vaccines in the country and their impact on infection rates.
To date, 3.8 million Israelis have received at least the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and nearly 2.5 million have received their second dose.