A shipment of 20,000 Paxlovid pills — the new anti-COVID-19 medication made by Pfizer — arrived Thursday in Israel.
“Together with people from the health system and the other systems in the country, we devoted the past weeks to preparing for entering the peak of the wave. Part of the preparations is also seeing to significant stocks of this important drug,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said upon the arrival of the plane carrying the drug.
Israel has ordered a total 100,000 doses of the new medication.
“In addition to our having the drugs, and I hope that we will not need to use them, the best thing is to get vaccinated, of course.
Just as Israel was a pioneer in rollout of the third and fourth doses of the Covid vaccine, it is showing the way in offering its citizens the medication. It’s an important tool that we are adding to our toolbox to fight the virus,” Bennett added.
EL AL CEO Avigal Sorek told the prime minister that the airline is “pleased to have played a small and important part in your efforts to defeat this pandemic.
“We are very proud that we have the privilege to take a small but very important step for the health of the people of Israel. We are proud to be the national airline,” Sorek said.
Clinical trials confirmed that the new medication, approved earlier this month by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), reduces hospitalizations and death among high-risk patients by nearly 90 percent, if taken within the first few days of onset of the virus.