TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) – Israel, Denmark and Austria on Thursday agreed to join forces in the fight against COVID-19 with an investment in vaccine research and deployment to protect people from new waves and mutations in the coronavirus.
Leaders of the three countries said their alliance would establish a foundation and vaccine distribution plants in Europe and Israel, based on the world’s leading inoculation campaign in Israel.
The effort is aimed at anticipating another expected rise in COVID-19 and the uncertainty of how long the inoculations will remain effective. Leaders said details were still being worked out, such as costs and the timeline for opening the projects.
“We believe that by uniting the resources of three small but very capable and gifted countries, we will be able to better meet these challenges,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He added that other countries have also expressed interest in the effort.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz added that “this pandemic can only be overcome through global cooperation.”
This has been a delicate issue, as anti-virus campaigns faced challenges in places like Europe and raised concerns that the pandemic would last longer in poorer countries than vaccination campaigns cannot afford.
Israel has inoculated more than half of its population in one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world, although it has faced some criticism for not sending significant amounts of vaccines to the Palestinians..
It is expected to change next week, as Israel will provide vaccines to some 100,000 Palestinian workers working in Israel or its West Bank settlements. However, the vast majority of the estimated 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will remain unvaccinated.
For Netanyahu, the alliance served to make his political muscle more flexible on the international stage before the March 23 elections. “The nation of vaccination,” as he calls Israel, would become “nations of vaccination,” to include Denmark and Austria, he said, adding that the group would host more international partners.
While Israel does not produce vaccines, the prime minister has moved aggressively to get enough vaccines for Israel’s 9.3 million people in the agreements with Pfizer and Moderna. Netanyahu has even offered some leftover vaccines to allied nations.
European leaders said they wanted to learn from Israel’s success. Austria is among the members of the European Union who have expressed frustration over the slow deployment of the vaccine among the bloc of 27 countries. Kurz said he was pleased with the EU’s crisis management, “but we must also cooperate around the world.”
Earlier in the day, Kurz and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen joined Netanyahu at a gym in Israel to observe the operation of vaccine certifications, known as “green passes” or passports. Only people with the badge indicating that they have been vaccinated, obtained through an app, can use the gyms and go to concerts.
“Vaccine production involves many steps, so we will divide the task between us and each of them will focus on specific others,” said Kurz, who said his country will need about 30 million doses for the next one. planned stage of the pandemic. Austria has vaccinated just over 6% of its population.
Frederiksen said he would also like countries to cooperate in clinical trials. Denmark has inoculated just over 7% of its population since March 1.
“We all have promising research that could pave the way for next-generation platforms,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.
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