JERUSALEM (AP) – After advancing in the race to inoculate its population against coronavirus, Israel has reached an agreement with Pfizer, promising to share vast medical data with the international drug giant in exchange for the continued flow of its per get the vaccine.
Proponents say the deal could allow Israel to become the first country to vaccinate most of its population, while providing valuable research that could help the rest of the world. But critics say the deal raises major ethical concerns, including possible violations of privacy and deepening the global divide that allows rich countries to store vaccines, as poorer populations, including Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. , occupied by Israel, have to wait longer to be inoculated.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approaching the country’s March elections as Israel’s chief vaccinator – said earlier this month that he reached an agreement with the chief executive of Pfizer to speed up the delivery of vaccines to Israel.
“Israel will be a global state model,” he said. “Israel will share with Pfizer and the world the statistical data that will help develop strategies to defeat the coronavirus.”
Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told The Associated Press that the government will provide the data to “see how it influences, in the first place, the level of disease in Israel, the possibility of opening up the economy, the different aspects of social life and if any are effects of vaccination “.
The Pfizer vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech, has received emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Union regulatory agency and is believed to provide up to 95% protection. against COVID-19. But many things are still unknown, including its long-term protection and whether it can prevent the transmission of the virus.
Israel, home to some 9.3 million people, is considered an ideal place to study these issues. Its mandatory universal health care is provided by four publicly funded HMOs with meticulously digitized medical records. This centralized system has helped Israel administer more than 2 million vaccine doses in less than a month. Israel has also purchased doses of Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines.
Inoculation flashing is a matter of national pride. He is also at the center of Netanyahu’s re-election campaign while trying to divert attention from its ongoing corruption trial, Israel’s deep economic crisis and the latest wave of viruses.
The Ministry of Health has recorded more than 551,000 cases since the beginning of the pandemic and more than 4,000 deaths. Israeli officials say they intend to vaccinate most of the country by the end of March, around election day.
But the exact quid pro quo between Israel and Pfizer is unclear, even after a drafted version of the agreement was released by the Israeli Ministry of Health on Sunday.
Neither Israel nor Pfizer would say how much Israel has paid for the vaccines, though Edelstein called it a “classic win-win” for both parties. Israeli media have reported that Israel paid at least 50% more than other countries. According to reports, the data is being shared with the World Health Organization, but the world body did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Earlier this month, the head of the WHO called on drug manufacturers and richer countries to “stop making bilateral agreements.” saying they hurt the UN-backed effort to expand access. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus did not distinguish any country or company.
Last week, Dr Siddhartha Datta, head of the WHO program in Europe for vaccine and immunization preventable diseases, said the agency was trying to collect “disaggregated” data based on age, gender, local area, employment and other factors, and report safety issues as vaccines are deployed.
Israel had already announced the acquisition of millions of doses of vaccine before the Pfizer deal was announced. It is unclear how the amount or pace of deliveries has changed or whether vaccines have been diverted from other countries.
The agreement has drawn attention to the unequal distribution of vaccines between rich and poor countries. A recent estimate by the International Rescue Committee said the WHO’s global COVAX campaign is likely to vaccinate only 20% of the world’s lowest-income countries by the end of 2021.
“This is an obscure agreement, which is preferred in some countries over others without any transparency,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University in Washington. “In the end, it will be low- and middle-income countries that will be left behind.”
Nadav Davidovitch, head of Israel’s Ben Gurion University School of Public Health and government adviser on coronavirus policy, said the deal has raised troubling concerns about the growing disparity in vaccination efforts.
“To eradicate COVID-19 or at least control it efficiently, we need to look at the global picture,” Davidovitch said.
This disparity is particularly striking in the case of Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who live under varying degrees of Israeli control and have not yet received any vaccines.
Despite vaccinating its own Arab citizens and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem annexed by Israel, Israel says it is not responsible for inoculating the Palestinians. Edelstein said Israel will consider helping once it takes care of its own citizens.
But the Palestinians and major human rights groups claim that Israel remains an occupying power and is responsible for providing them with vaccines. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh recently accused Israel of “racism,” but has not publicly called for vaccines.
With tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank working in Israel and its West Bank settlements, experts say Israel should share vaccines for ethical and practical reasons.
“I sincerely believe we need to see how we get the vaccine for the Palestinian Authority,” said Davidovitch, acting president of the Israeli Public Health Professionals Association. “We are talking to the Minister of Health, and I hope that this will be resolved soon.”
It is also not known exactly what information is shared with Pfizer. Under the drafted agreement, “no identifiable health information” will be shared and the research must be published in a recognized medical journal.
He said Israel will provide Pfizer with weekly data on various age groups and demographics. The goal, he said, is to “analyze epidemiological data from the product’s release, to determine whether the herd’s immunity is achieved after reaching a percentage of vaccination coverage in Israel.”
The data, he added, is “intended to help end the global COVID-19 pandemic for the benefit of all patients inside and outside Israel.”
Privacy Israel, an advocacy group that had asked the government to disclose the deal, welcomed its release, but said some questions remained unanswered, mainly about the handling and security of private information. He also ignored some details, such as the key dates and names of the officials involved. Still, he said there is “a little more certainty” about sharing information with a global corporation.
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a digital privacy expert at the Israel Institute for Democracy, questioned the ethics of a deal that could bring millions in profits to Pfizer. He also said that sharing large amounts of information could potentially jeopardize people’s privacy, even if it is supposedly made anonymous.
“If God wills it, the data set will be hacked, the risk will be yours,” he said, referring to Israeli citizens.