Israel Health Ministry Makes New COVID Vaccine Available for Some People

A resident receives a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a nursing home after Israel approved it for people older than 60, in Tel Mond, Israel, on Jan. 6, 2022. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

The Israel Ministry of Health (MOH) announced guidelines for the new COVID-19 vaccine booster on Sept. 21.

In the first phase, people at high risk for serious illness from the virus who are aged 12 and older will be able to get the booster beginning in mid-October.

People in the risk group “for severe illness from the virus will be preferred, regardless of the type of vaccine or the number of doses given in the past,” the MOH said in a statement.

At a later phase, when the MOH is able to receive additional vaccines, the guidelines will be expanded, according to the statement.

This time, it will be the Moderna vaccine that will be offered.

Prior to this, since December 2020, Israel has used almost exclusively the Pfizer vaccine. The statement didn’t explain the reasons for the change of manufacturer.

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“The vaccines that will arrive in Israel are manufactured by the Moderna company and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),” the statement reads.

According to the FDA authorization, “In studies that have been recently conducted, the extent of neutralization observed by the updated vaccines against currently circulating viral variants causing COVID-19, including EG.5 and BA.2.86, appears to be of a similar magnitude to the extent of neutralization observed with prior versions of the vaccines against corresponding prior variants against which they had been developed to provide protection.”

The first vaccine dose that became available in December 2020 had a take-up rate of about 71 percent in the Israeli population. The second dose had a take-up rate of about 65 percent. The take-up rate for the first booster was about 48 percent, according to MOH data.

Additional booster shots were offered mainly for the elderly, those who were at high risk, and medical staff and caregivers. About 9 percent of the population took up the second booster. About 4 percent took up the bivalent booster that was offered in October 2022, according to MOH data.

The MOH especially recommended in the recent statement that “patients suffering from immunosuppression for any reason get vaccinated against the coronavirus.”

It said that in a later stage and when additional vaccines are available, access will be expanded to include “the entire population from the age of 6 months and older, regardless of the number of doses given in the past.”

The MOH also stated that “pregnant women can be vaccinated against the coronavirus at all stages of pregnancy” and that “breastfeeding women and women planning pregnancy can be vaccinated.”

Vials with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine labels, in an illustration picture taken on March 19, 2021. (Dado Ruvic//Reuters)

‘Moderate Increase’

The MOH has distributed its guidelines for vaccination against new Omicron substrains to all four Israeli health maintenance organizations—organizations that provide citizens with health care.

The MOH cited its constant monitoring of morbidity trends and coronavirus variants for the new guidelines.

There’s a “moderate increase” in Israel in the number of hospitalized patients, most of whom have a mild case of COVID-19. In addition, there’s a moderate increase in the number of patients in a serious condition, the MOH stated.

The number of individuals hospitalized in serious condition increased in the past three months from 27 on June 24 to 64 on Sept. 24. Those hospitalized in mild condition increased from seven to 32 in the same period, according to the MOH coronavirus dashboard.

The number of average weekly confirmed cases rose from 88 on June 24 to 205 on Sept. 24, according to MOH data.

In a statement in mid-September, ahead of the Jewish holidays, the MOH recommended masking in closed, crowded places to people in high-risk groups or those wanting to reduce their risk of infection. The recommendation was made despite accumulating evidence that masks don’t prevent the transmission of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

At the beginning of September, the ministry also instructed public hospitals to begin conducting PCR tests on new patients, but the hospitals refused.

In a letter to the hospitals, the MOH directed staff to perform PCR tests on all new admissions in internal wards, citing a rise in COVID-19 morbidity.

The letter also noted a lack of hospital testing, which has left officials struggling to track infection rates. Most Israelis are testing for the virus using at-home kits.

The hospitals’ managers refused to conduct PCR tests because doing so wouldn’t bring effective data, would impose an “unreasonable workload” on them, and would “result in considerable expenses,” they said in a letter of response two days later.

Other Countries

Many other countries are also offering or recommending the new vaccines to certain populations.

UK authorities recently said, for instance, that the updated vaccines will only be available to select groups, including the elderly and staffers in adult care homes.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on the other hand, recommended that nearly all Americans aged 6 months and older receive one of the new shots.

Florida authorities aligned with the other countries, noting the lack of strong data backing the new vaccines.

Pfizer has presented no clinical trial data on its updated shot, while Moderna said a study featuring 50 people who received one of the new shots showed that it induced neutralizing antibodies, which are thought to be protective against COVID-19.

“The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) indicates that the highly mutated BA.2.86 [Pirola] variant may be more capable of causing infection in people who previously had COVID-19 or were vaccinated with previous vaccines, noting that updated COVID-19 vaccines may be effective in reducing severe disease and hospitalization,” the vaccine company said.

Zachary Stieber and Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.