“There may be good news regarding a drug to treat corona,” Bennett said. “Already during the weekend, I asked our system to study the issue of the new drug in-depth, and to examine procurement for the State of Israel.”
“If the drug is approved for use it will be another significant tool in fighting the pandemic, along with vaccines for everyone and test accessibility, for everyone, all the time,” he added.
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The company added that it plans to submit the data to the US Food and Drug Administration before November 25.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company is in talks with around 90 countries to provide the pill.
While earlier reports on Israeli media said that Israel was not among the countries, on Sunday morning, Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash said that while Jerusalem had not yet reached an agreement with the company, he hoped it would do so in the next few days.
“I think that the good relations with Pfizer will help us get the drug fast,” he noted during an interview on 103FM radio.
Commenting on the results of the clinical trial about the medication, Ash said, “It sounds promising, but I need to also learn about the drug’s success data and costs.”
Also on Sunday, the ministry announced that the Pandemic Response Team and the Advisory Committee on Vaccine will meet again on Wednesday to discuss and vote on the approval of vaccination for children ages 5-11.
The previous session on Thursday was live-streamed. Regarding the debate on Wednesday, the ministry was still considering whether to hold it behind closed doors or to make it accessible to the public.
Ash said that in light of the high level of verbal violence the discourse around the topic of vaccines has sparked, the ministry might not want to expose the members of the panel in another public debate – also in consideration of the fact that many of them work for independent organizations and are not Health Ministry’s officials.
He added that several experts said they would feel more at liberty to express themselves freely if the session was not open.
In the meantime, morbidity in Israel continued to decline.
Only 194 new cases were recorded on Saturday. While the number of tests processed during the weekend is consistently lower than on weekdays – around 30,000 compared to 80,000 – the figure marks the lowest since July.
In addition, as of Sunday, Israel had 178 serious patients. A month earlier there were 460.
Since Thursday, only two COVID deaths were registered, while the average daily death toll in the past three months has been 17 victims a day.