VIDEO – Third dose for all: what lessons can be learned from the Israeli example? – LCI

Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic almost two years ago, one country has been under a magnifying glass by the whole world in terms of vaccination: Israel and its 9 million inhabitants. After pioneering injection last December, thanks to an agreement with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the authorities launched their recall campaign for the third dose at the end of July, in the middle of the fourth wave .

As a result, Israelis are now 42% to have received it from the age of 12. “It seems to work, well I think, and then it’s really a little inconvenience in our daily lives. It’s really for the best”, thus reacts a young man in the report of the news of 20H of TF1 at the head of this article. Since the beginning of October, the third injection for all is also now mandatory in order to obtain the health pass and go to public places.

A rule taken to stem a peak of contamination never seen in Israel, where we began to vaccinate several months before the rest of the world. As a result, in September, the immunity conferred to the two doses was no longer sufficient. “We didn’t really have any other choice than to be the first country to decide to carry out an emergency booster vaccination campaign”, explains Ran Balicer, chairman of the country’s Covid-19 expert council. The result is a drastic drop in the number of cases, from 10,000 per day in mid-September to 500 today.

This massive campaign of recalls allows scientists to learn about the effectiveness of the third dose, as explained to TF1 by Professor Cyrille Cohen, immunologist, professor at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv. “According to our study, carried out on a million and a half people, with half who received the two doses and the other half the three doses, we see that this third dose protects 93% of serious diseases and 80 % on mortality “, he said. In other words, the risk of severe forms would be divided by 15 with this booster dose.

For epidemiologist Hagai Levine, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, this campaign has stabilized the number of severe cases and has therefore proved to be a “success”. As a result, after more than a year and a half of closure, Israel reopened its borders to tourists this week, but only travelers who have received three doses of vaccines are allowed to enter the territory.