Posted on 09/25/21
| News Source: i24
Top medics say FDA decision shows the third dose is safe, even if ethical issues of access to vaccines remain
Following the final authorization by the United States on Wednesday of the booster shots of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for those in high-risk groups, Israeli health officials said that the decision represents a validation of Israel's own intensive inoculation campaign.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the booster shot for those aged 65 and upward as well as adults at high risk of severe disease and those in high-exposure jobs.
“The decision reinforced our results that the third dose is safe,” Dr. Nadav Davidovitch, head of the school of public health at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University told the Associated Press, acknowledging that the rollout posed ethical issues, seeing as many countries have limited access to life-saving vaccines.
Dr. Ran Balicer, head of the government’s expert advisory panel on COVID-19, has likewise stated that the booster dose boosted immunity against the virus.
According to the Health Ministry, over 3,000,000 of Israel’s approximately 9,000,000 citizens have gotten a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
In a study published earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, Israeli experts said that the booster increased vaccine efficacy tenfold.
That study tracked about 1,000,000 people aged 60 and older and found that the third shot was “very effective at reducing the rate of both confirmed infection and severe illness,” the Health Ministry said.
A senior Israeli health official, Dr. Sharon Alroy Preiss, was among the experts testifying before an FDA panel last week in favor of the booster shot, when the regulator decided against a universal rollout, opting only to authorize it for people in high-risk groups.