Israel on Sunday made a U-turn on part of its policy for third Covid-19 vaccination shots, explaining that contrary to a recent announcement, oncology patients should actually stick with two jabs only.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that on Monday Israel began administering a third shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech inoculation to patients with compromised immune systems, including people who have had heart, lung, and kidney transplants and some cancer patients.
However, on Sunday, the health ministry revealed that after reviewing data on hundreds of patients from oncology wards, ‘the recommendation at this stage is to not vaccinate’ cancer patients.
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‘Nearly 90 percent of the patients receiving chemotherapy developed antibodies following the (two doses of) vaccination, and the level of antibodies remained high a number of months after the vaccination,’ it said in a ‘clarification’ to the health funds and hospitals administering the shots.
‘In addition, the vaccination could have side effects… that could affect the oncological treatment,’ the ministry said.
Africa Today News New York recalls that Pfizer and BioNTech have previously disclosed that they would ask US and European authorities for permission to provide a third dose of their vaccine, but European regulators say it was too early to tell if a third was necessary.
The World Health Organization has expressed concern that such a booster shot could come at the expense of countries whose citizens have not yet received their first two doses.
Israel’s initial vaccine rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab was among the world’s fastest and helped to bring confirmed daily cases down to single digits last month.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK