Israeli vaccine: how is the agreement to get thousands of Argentine volunteers and manufacture doses against Covid in the country

Natasha Niebieskikwiat

05/08/2021 6:00 AM

• Clarín.com

• Society

Updated 05/08/2021 6:00 AM

This Saturday a group of Israeli scientists and doctors arrives in Argentina to close an agreement with local authorities, which involves convening

thousands of volunteers

 to participate in the trials of phase 3 of the Brilife vaccine, which the Israel Biological Institute designed .

Behind this project is the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, one of the centers that treated the most Covid cases in that country.

The objective, in addition, is to

connect with a local producer

, among which it is already commented that it could be Sinergium Biotech, from the businessman Hugo Sigman. 

The delegation includes the director of the Hospital, Yoram Weiss, and the Argentine-Israeli Jorge Diener, co-head of delegation as well as Executive Director of Hadassah International.

On Friday, during his stopover in Paris, Diener explained

some details of the negotiation

to

Clarín

.

During the week, the group will hold meetings with Minister Carla Vizzotti, with the Argentine ambassador to Israel, Sergio Urribarri, who initiated the first contacts with Hadassah, in Jerusalem;

with the president of the Argentine-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, Mario Montoto, businessmen from the pharmaceutical industry and hospital authorities to explore

where and who

can do the trials.

-How do you plan phase 3 of the Brilife vaccine?

-It is the next step that the Israeli vaccine needs for final approval, production and distribution.

These days it is completing its phase 2, with 950 volunteers all in Israel.

Phase 3 already has to be with between 30,000 and 50,000 volunteers.

In Israel there is no possibility of doing so.

Two-thirds of the population are already vaccinated, with the Pfizer vaccine.

Jorge Diener, one of the leaders of the Hadassah Hospital delegation.

-How will you get 30,000 volunteers in Argentina? 

- Not only Argentines, we are in talks to have volunteers also in Brazil and Mexico

- How are they going to produce the vaccines?

- A local partner must be generated that can produce at least at the beginning the amount of vaccines necessary to carry out this phase 3. The Israel Biological Institute would transfer the technology to a local partner.

We are not inventing anything: it is a model that also creates an opportunity for a company from the South American continent to produce not only for one country, but for other countries on the continent.

We are talking about how we generate a sustainable model for the coming years.

- It transpired that Hugo Sigman's Sinergium Biontech laboratory is behind the Israeli vaccine and its production in Argentina.

- We are talking about two different moments.

- How is the situation today in Israel considering that they had high levels of contagion, but also led the vaccination?

- What has been mainly evidenced is that if someone had any doubt that the virus is won with a vaccination that reaches two thirds of the population, the hypothesis is proven at least in Israel, with 65 percent of vaccinated population.

Today, there are still closed places but in the street everything is open with a more or less normal activity of the people, there are almost no infections.

- At what level are the hospitalizations?

- We at the hospital had up to 100 patients in intensive care during the Covid peaks.

We now have 7. The evidence shows that vaccination is what works.

For the skeptics and those who do not believe in vaccines, what is going to allow the world to weaken the virus is for the world to get this herd immunity.

$

Look also

Coronavirus vaccines: everything you need to know

WHO authorized the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine for emergency use