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Israel has agreed to send over 700,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to South Korea that are due to expire by the end of the month.
The move is part of a vaccine sharing deal, which new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett described as a “win-win” for both countries.
In the exchange, Seoul have pledged to send the same number of vaccine doses to Israel later in the year from pre-existing orders. The Israeli Ministry of Health announced the agreement, which was made with the cooperation of Pfizer and their CEO, Albert Boula.
The deal arose after the Palestinian Authority suddenly cancelled a similar arrangement with Israel earlier in June. Ramallah claim that the vaccines were too close to the expiration deadline, and were therefore not safe to use.
The Israeli Ministry of Health expressed their confusion with this stance, asserting that the vaccines are “perfectly sound” from a medical standpoint right until the expiration date. They confirm that it is completely standard practice to use doses whose expiration deadline is close, as long as the date has not passed, and the Pfizer-BioNTech manufacturers agree.
Israel reportedly still has over 1.4 million vaccines set to expire by the end of July. PM Bennett is trying to get kids aged 12-14 vaccinated before 9 July, leaving just enough time to receive a second dose.
