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* Israel bought enough vaccine from others, official says
* Seeks to divert AstraZeneca shipment to other countries
* Israel's vaccine rollout one of the fastest in the world
JERUSALEM, April 21 (Reuters) - Israel no longer wants
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine and is exploring with the
company whether a big shipment in the pipeline could be sent
elsewhere, Israel's pandemic coordinator said on Wednesday.
"We are trying to find the best solution. After all, we
don't want (the vaccines) to get here and have to throw them
into the trash," the official, Nachman Ash, told Army Radio,
saying Israel's needs were being met by other suppliers.
In his remarks, Ash made no reference to AstraZeneca’s
vaccine having been associated with very rare blood clots in
Europe. Many countries there resumed administering it after the
European Union's drug watchdog said benefits outweighed risks.
Israel cast a wide net last year when trying to secure
vaccine doses at the height of the pandemic and pre-ordered from
a number of companies.
It largely settled on the Pfizer/BioNTech
vaccine, launching one of the world's swiftest rollouts.
COVID-19 infections in Israel have dropped dramatically and the
economy has reopened.
Israel is also buying the COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna
, which uses a similar messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
Ash said that with supplies secure through 2022, Israel no
longer required the 10 million doses it agreed to purchase from
AstraZeneca.
"They can certainly be used in other places in the world. At
the moment, we are trying to find, along with the company, the
best way to do this," he said.
"We believe it would be best if they (the vaccines) did not
come to Israel and we agree with the company on some sort of way
to divert them elsewhere."
Officials at AstraZeneca had no immediate comment.
Around 81% of Israeli citizens or residents over 16 - the
age group eligible for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Israel -
have received both doses.
Some 167,000 of the 5.2 million Palestinians in the occupied
West Bank and Islamist Hamas-run Gaza have had at least one dose
of vaccine, with supplies coming in from Israel, Russia, the
United Arab Emirates, the global COVAX vaccine-sharing programme
and China.
(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller and Ari Rabinovitch. Editing by
Mark Potter)
