Israel to give booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine to people aged over 60

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Tel Aviv: Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that the country will start offering a third dose of COVID-19 vaccinations to people aged over 60, making it probably one of the first countries to provide a booster shot. Al Jazeera reported that Israel will begin offering a third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to people who have already been vaccinated, as per the announcement made by the Prime Minister on Thursday.

"I`m announcing this evening the beginning of the campaign to receive the booster vaccine, the third vaccine," Naftali Bennett said in a nationally televised address."Reality proves the vaccines are safe. Reality also proves the vaccines protect from severe morbidity and death. And like the flu vaccine that needs to be renewed from time to time, it is the same in this case."

Those eligible will be able to get the booster shot as long as they received their second dose more than five months ago, Al Jazeera reported citing local media. About 160 people are hospitalised with severe symptoms and daily infections have spiked to more than 2,000, up from just a handful of cases per day a few months ago.

The booster campaign, expected to be announced formally soon, will effectively turn Israel into a testing ground for a third dose before approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).On July 11, the government started offering a third dose to adults with weak immune systems, it reported further.