TEL AVIV, Nov 23, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Israel began rolling out Covid-19
vaccines for children aged five to 11 on Monday, becoming one of a handful of
countries to inoculate children so young as it seeks to ward off another
pandemic wave.
Over the summer, the Jewish state experienced an upsurge in coronavirus
infections, fuelled by the Delta variant, and launched one of the earliest
campaigns for booster shots.
As infections start to creep up again, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has
said the country is experiencing a "children's wave" with about half of the
recently confirmed cases among children below the age of 11, he wrote on
Facebook.
Authorities had already begun immunising those aged 12 to 17 but decided to
lower the age threshold in the wake of trials by Pfizer and recommendations
from a panel of Israeli scientists.
While the campaign for younger minors was set to officially start Tuesday,
doses were already being administered by Monday night, an AFP team in Tel
Aviv found.
"Right now during the epidemic, the best tool to protect our children is
vaccination," said Heli Nave from outside a clinic giving the Pfizer-BioNTech
jabs to children.
She said "it is not an easy decision at all" but the availability of data
from the United States -- which started immunising five-to-11-year-olds
earlier this month -- had convinced her.
The prime minister is scheduled to have his own youngest son vaccinated on
Tuesday morning, his office announced.
Israel was one of the first countries to launch vaccines against the
coronavirus last year thanks to a deal with Pfizer that gave it access to
millions of doses in exchange for data on the vaccine's efficacy.
More than 5.7 million of the country's nine million people are now fully
vaccinated.