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Tel Aviv, Israel:
Israel obtained its first batch of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring the pandemic’s finish was “in sight” and vowing to get the primary jab.
“This is a great celebration for Israel,” he mentioned on the tarmac at Ben Gurion airport, close to Tel Aviv, as a fork-lift truck began unloading the cargo from a pink and yellow DHL air freighter.
The cargo was the primary of eight million doses ordered from US pharmaceutical big Pfizer BioNTech.
It got here forward of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins on Thursday.
“The end is in sight,” Netanyahu mentioned referring to the illness which has contaminated 348,948 Israelis, 2,932 of them fatally, based on a Wednesday replace.
“What is important to me is that Israeli citizens get vaccinated,” he added.
“I want to serve as an example to them and I intend to be the first to be injected with this vaccine in the state of Israel.”
The Pfizer vaccine has but to obtain the required regulatory approvals to be used in Israel however Netanyahu mentioned he anticipated it to obtain clearance “in the very near” future.
The outcomes of third-phase scientific trials confirmed that the vaccine was 90 p.c efficient in stopping Covid-19 signs and didn’t produce opposed negative effects amongst hundreds of volunteers.
Britain began inoculating its residents with the vaccine on Tuesday.
Israel has additionally contracted to purchase six million Covid-19 vaccine doses from US biotech agency Moderna that are anticipated to be delivered in 2021, giving a complete of 14 million photographs for its populaton of 9 million.
The Jewish state imposed a second nationwide lockdown in September, when the nation had one of many world’s highest per capita an infection charges.
Restrictions have since been steadily eased however an infection charges are once more on the rise.
On Monday, Netanyahu’s workplace introduced a sweeping night-time curfew nevertheless it has to this point not obtained the cupboard approval required for its implementation and no particulars have been revealed.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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