News, updates and real-time tracking of Israel's Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Get all the latest Pfizer vaccine news from The Jerusalem Post.
Israel has embarked on a mass coronavirus vaccination campaign largely centered on the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the company’s German technology partner.
Pfizer (traded as PFE on the New York stock exchange) was founded 170 years ago and is one of the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies. According to its website, Pfizer’s global portfolio includes medicines and vaccines, as well as many of the world's best-known consumer health care products.
The company’s CEO is Albert Bourla, who was born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece. He is of Sephardic Jewish descent. His parents survived the Holo
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine received approval for emergency use by the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - known as Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) - in December 2020. The world’s first approved messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine, it is administered in two doses of 30 micrograms given 21 days apart.
A Phase III clinical trial found that the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed coronavirus with minimal side effects.
Pfizer side effects usually start within a day or two of receiving the shot and can last for equally as long. Most people simply experience slight pain at the sight of injection, but others can experience some flu-like symptoms that could even affect their ability to carry out normal daily activities.
Pfizer’s vaccine is based on messenger RNA (mRNA) - the first-ever vaccine of this type brought to market for human recipients.
These vaccines use a sequence of genetic RNA material produced in a lab that, when injected, enters the cells and sparks production of the viral components that subsequently train the immune system to fight the virus.
When Moderna, another coronavirus mRNA vaccine that is now approved and that works very similar to the Pfizer vaccine, was just finishing its Phase I trial, The Independent wrote about the vaccine and described it this way: “It uses a sequence of genetic RNA material produced in a lab that, when injected into your body, must invade your cells and hijack your cells’ protein-making machinery called ribosomes to produce the viral components that subsequently train your immune system to fight the virus.”
The Pfizer vaccine is asking people’s bodies to do something they do every day: protein synthesis, the process where cells make proteins. The vaccine is simply delivering a specific mRNA sequence to our cells. Once the mRNA is in the cell, human biology takes over. Ribosomes read the code and build the protein, and the cells express the protein in the body.
Pfizer has agreements for millions of vaccines with several countries across the world, ranging from the European Union and the United States to Japan, Canada, Australia and, of course, Israel.
Israel originally ordered eight million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, enough to vaccinate four million people. However, in a deal worked out between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the company, Israel will receive enough doses to vaccinate any Israeli who wants to get the jab. Israel has around six million citizens over the age of 16 who are eligible to be vaccinated.
Although due to confidentiality agreements, Israel did not disclose exactly how much it would pay for the Pfizer vaccine, media reports indicated that the country was paying top dollar.
According to Israel’s Channel 13, Israel agreed to pay $56 per person ($28 for each dose), as opposed to the $39 the US is paying. The European Union reportedly is paying even less.
The Pfizer dose is 30 micrograms of vaccine. Moderna has a much larger dose: 100 micrograms.
There is a 21-day waiting period between the first and second shot of the Pfizer vaccine. The Moderna vaccine has a 28-day waiting period.
While the world has begun inoculating itself with these completely new and revolutionary vaccines, virtually nothing is known about their long-term effects. However, most medical professionals believe there is no cause for concern.
Michal Linial, a professor of biological chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post that “mRNA is a very fragile molecule, meaning it can be destroyed very easily... If you put mRNA on the table, for example, in a minute there will not be any mRNA leftover. This is as opposed to DNA, which is as stable as you get.”
She said that this fragility is true of the mRNA of any living thing, whether it belongs to a plant, bacteria, virus or human.
As such, she said the worry should not be that the mRNA won’t get into the cells and instead will stay outside, floating in the body and causing some kind of reaction. Rather the concern should be that if it doesn’t enter the cells, it will disintegrate and therefore be ineffective.
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