Israel makes a “great service“to the world by testing part of its population the effectiveness of a third dose of anti-Covid vaccine, pleaded its Prime Minister on Thursday, despite the appeal of the World Health Organization (WHO) in favor of ‘a moratorium on this practice.

At a time when Western countries are striving to vaccinate as many of their populations as possible with two doses against the coronavirus, Israel launched a campaign last Friday for a third dose of vaccine, mainly from Pfizer / BioNtech laboratories, to people aged 60 and over.

Read also: Anti-covid vaccine: in Israel, never two without three?

Access to the vaccine still very uneven in the world

But on Wednesday, WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for a moratorium on these booster vaccines, in order to leave these doses at the disposal of countries which have been able to immunize only a tiny part of their population.

On Thursday, the Israeli government did not issue a statement to respond to the WHO, but questioned by AFP during a video conference, Prime Minister Bennett defended his government’s choice to move forward with the third dose.

“We don’t just do this for ourselves. On the one hand, we are a small country so it will not affect global stocks (…) and on the other hand we will accumulate knowledge and immediately share it with the rest of the world.“, did he declare.

“Without us, the world would not know the effectiveness of the booster dose (…) so we are doing the rest of the world a great service.“, added the Prime Minister.

20% of those over 60 received a third dose

Since Sunday and the start of the recall campaign, more than 262,000 Israelis aged 60 and over, or 21% of that age group, have received a third dose, according to the health ministry. And appointments have already been made for 381,000 people, according to this source.

“The elderly have a more developed sense of responsibility and at the same time they are really afraid of being seriously ill if they get an infection.Shoshana, a 75-year-old Jerusalem resident about to receive her booster shot, told AFP on Thursday.