Israel will continue to offer a fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine despite preliminary findings that it is not enough to prevent infections with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, a senior Israeli health official said on Tuesday, predicting that infections caused by the strain will decrease within a week.
The fastest country to start the vaccination campaign a year ago, Israel last month began offering a fourth dose – also known as a second booster – to the most vulnerable and high-risk groups. The country has postponed the expansion of supply to the general population.
A preliminary study published by Israel’s Sheba Medical Center on Monday found that the fourth dose boosts antibodies to even higher levels than the third, but “probably” not enough to ward off the highly transmissible Omicron.
Ministry of Health Director-General Nachman Ash described these findings as “unsurprising to some extent” as Omicron infections had been detected in some people after they had received the fourth dose.
But “protection from severe morbidity, especially for the elderly population and population at risk, is still provided by this vaccine (dose) and therefore I urge people to keep coming to be vaccinated,” he told Army Radio.
In a statement Tuesday, the Sheba Medical Center said that while the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in use today do not provide optimal protection against Omicron, “it is important to continue vaccinating the population at risk.”
As elsewhere, Israel has seen Covid-19 cases spiraling due to Omicron. But it has not recorded any deaths from the variant, and Ash said there has been no increase in the number of Covid-19 patients requiring respiratory support, an indicator of the most critical cases.
“In another week we will start to see a drop in numbers, but we still have two or three difficult weeks ahead,” he said, adding that some Health Ministry computers had been overwhelmed by the volume of testing data since Sunday, halting updates. .
Reference: CNN Brasil
