What exactly does the Department of Health share with Pfizer?

The deal between Israel and pharmaceutical company Pfizer was released by the health ministry on Sunday.

Over the past month, Israel has established itself as a vaccination powerhouse. The government then succeeded in persuading Pfizer to significantly increase the supply of coronavirus vaccine doses from what it had initially agreed to, in exchange for medical data. However, some expressed concern that the additional doses might come at the expense of citizens’ privacy.

However, while parts of the deal have been blacked out, the document makes it clear that “no identifiable health information will be shared between the parties.”

According to the document, the Department of Health undertakes to communicate to Pfizer the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, hospitalizations, severe / critical cases, ventilated patients and symptomatic cases per week, as well as the number vaccinations performed. In both cases, the data will also be disaggregated according to demographic factors, such as age groups.

Much of this information is already shared publicly by the ministry on a daily basis.

About two million Israelis have already received at least their first vaccine, making the country by far the best in the world in terms of per capita immunization and placing it in the unique position of serving as a ‘test state’, with the capacity to provide key information to the rest of the world.

As stated in the agreement, the objective of the cooperation is “to measure and analyze the epidemiological data resulting from the [Pfizer] Product deployment, to determine if herd immunity is achieved after reaching a certain percentage of vaccine coverage in Israel. “

While no specific number of doses are included in the document – at least in the visible parts – Pfizer is committed to providing enough vaccine to achieve herd immunity as quickly as possible.

According to what was reported by Israeli media last week, the company is expected to deliver between 400,000 and 700,000 doses each week.

The agreement further states: “The data generated by the project is aimed at helping end the global COVID-19 pandemic for the benefit of all patients inside and outside Israel” and that they “will be based on current medical literature and guidelines adopted by inspected medical bodies. “

In addition, under the agreement, no information may be disclosed to third parties, unless expressly authorized by the disclosing party. The ministry will retain ownership of the data shared with Pfizer.

Pfizer will share expertise in areas such as respiratory diseases, vaccines and epidemiology with the Department of Health. The two organizations will also report jointly for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

On Friday, the Ministry of Health announced that the general population over the age of 45 is now eligible for vaccination.