The vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech is 98.8 percent effective in preventing deaths or hospitalizations from COVID-19, the head of the Israeli Ministry of Health said.
The Times of Israel reported that Israeli Ministry of Health Director General Chezy Levy said in a statement that the data collected by his agency also showed that the vaccine was 99.2 percent effective at prevention of severe cases of the disease. Data analyzed by the agency only included patients who received both doses of Pfizers vaccine, the paper noted.
“The vaccine dramatically reduces serious illness and mortality,” said Levy, according to the Times of Israel.
“Israel’s strong health system that has enabled us to vaccinate an unprecedented percentage of the population and our epidemiological tracking facilities make us the first country in the world to demonstrate the vaccine’s effect in the real clinical world,” Levy added.
The health minister added in the statement on Saturday that Israel would continue to try to vaccinate all adults over the age of 16 against the virus before moving forward with vaccines for the country’s younger population.
Israel is lauded for the rapid pace of its program, which has so far resulted in about a third of the country’s population receiving a vaccine. However, the country’s government has also criticized the availability of the vaccine in Palestinian-controlled areas, including the Gaza Strip, with Palestinian authorities calling on Israeli officials to increase the number of vaccines being provided to the millions of Palestinians living in those areas. , increase.
The head of Gaza’s Ministry of Health said last week that the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in the territory, but stressed that the 2,000 provided was far less than the amount needed to vaccinate health workers in the area.