Israel Faces Expiry of 800,000 Pfizer Vaccine Doses... Possible Disposal

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on the 29th (local time) that Israel may face a situation where it has to discard as many as 800,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The Israeli Ministry of Health plans to use about 600,000 doses out of 1.4 million Pfizer vaccine doses expiring at the end of next month for vaccination of 12-15-year-old children and adolescents, totaling around 300,000 people.

The problem is that any doses not used through vaccination before the expiration date or not sold to appropriate buyers must be discarded.

Earlier this month, Israel provided 1 million doses of vaccines nearing expiration to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which had not secured vaccines early, and pursued a method of exchanging vaccines scheduled to be delivered to Palestine around September to October.

However, the PA rejected the vaccines Israel offered, claiming they did not meet their own standards. Currently, it is known that three countries in need of vaccines are contacting Israel to secure its stock.

Since importing Pfizer vaccines and starting vaccinations in December last year, Israel has completed two doses for about 5.16 million people, more than 55% of the total population (approximately 9.3 million).

As the Israeli government was able to control COVID-19 infections through rapid vaccination, it began lifting lockdowns step-by-step from February, lifted outdoor mask mandates in April, and indoor mask mandates from the 15th of this month. However, as the Delta variant (originating from India) spread in places where children under 16, such as schools, live, indoor mask-wearing was made mandatory again on the 25th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.