Israeli panel recommends fourth Covid vaccine dose for all adults
Country is first to back quadruple jabs after study showed they increased protection against severe illness
Israel’s vaccine advisory panel has recommended a fourth dose of a Covid-19 shot for all adults, a world first, as the country battles a surge in infections driven by the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The move follows research showing fourth doses doubled protection against symptomatic Covid and increased protection against severe illness by three to five times, compared with three doses.
Other countries, such as the UK, US and Chile, have signed off on fourth doses for immunocompromised people, such as those living with HIV or certain transplant recipients, but have hesitated on launching a widescale second booster campaign.
Israel’s vaccine advisory committee “recommends that those aged 18 and over be able to be vaccinated with a fourth vaccine dose”, confirmed the Israeli health ministry in a statement. The rollout is subject to approval by health ministry director-general Nachman Ash.
People would become eligible five months after their third dose or after recovering from the disease, the ministry added. In the past fortnight, about 900,000 Israelis have tested positive for Covid.
Israel became the first country to extend fourth doses to over-60s, healthcare workers and people with weakened immune systems in late December. About 600,000 Israelis have already received a second booster and about half of the population have received a third shot.
A senior Israeli government scientist told the Financial Times the recommendation was based on enabling “individual decision-making” rather than “pushing” fourth doses on younger groups. “We are making the people the gatekeepers over the decision,” he said.
He added it was a “quite unusual” recommendation aimed at balancing the “accumulating evidence” of the protection offered against severe disease against “the multiple open-ended questions” about safety risks and the likelihood of waning immunity.
The World Health Organization last week endorsed third doses, saying they should be prioritised for vulnerable people. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Israeli decision on Tuesday.
Marco Cavaleri, head of biological health threats and vaccines strategy at the European Medicines Agency, told reporters earlier this month that boosting was not something the agency thought could be done “continuously . . . every three to four months” for the general population. And, also in January, UK vaccine advisers said there was “not an immediate need to introduce a second booster dose”.
“We don’t want to force people to receive it, and to say if they don’t receive it, they are doing something bad,” said Boaz Lev, head of Israel’s vaccine advisory panel. “We want for each person to decide if they want another edge of protection.”
He said although data were limited, evidence pointed towards a fourth dose being “in many ways life-saving”. The latest study on fourth dose effectiveness, conducted by several Israeli universities and the Sheba Medical Center, compared about 400,000 quadruple-jabbed people with 600,000 triple-jabbed and was published on Sunday.
Referring to whether other countries would follow suit with a broad fourth-dose campaign, Lev said: “My crystal ball has broken and I haven’t purchased a new one. Each country . . . is different and they are trying to learn from one another.”
A total of 83,613 people in Israel tested positive for Covid in the latest 24-hour period, as the Omicron wave sweeps the country, bringing with it record-breaking infection rates. As of Tuesday morning, there were 2,256 Covid patients in hospitals, of whom just 177 required mechanical ventilation, according to official data.