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HEALTH-VIRUS-ISRAEL-VACCINES
Israel releases data-sharing deal with Pfizer
JERUSALEM, Jan 18, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Israel has secured a significant stock
of coronavirus vaccines partly by pledging to share product impact data
quickly, an agreement between the country and Pfizer seen by AFP on Monday
indicates.
The Jewish state has given one jab of the two required Pfizer-BioNTech
injections to more than two million people, a pace widely described as the
world’s fastest, while several wealthier nations continue to struggle with
vaccine supply.
Israel, which experts say has one of the world’s most sophisticated
medical databases, has not concealed the fact that it agreed to share data
with US-German pharma alliance Pfizer-BioNTech during its vaccination
campaign.
As data privacy activists raised questions about the level of information
sharing with Pfizer, Israel’s health ministry released a partially redacted
copy of the terms.
The deal called “The Real-World Epidemiological Evidence Collaboration
Agreement” does not state the specific terms of any ‘data for doses’
arrangement.
But it does make clear that Pfizer understands Israel must remain well
stocked in order to generate quality data about the vaccine quickly.
The agreement defines the joint project between Israel and Pfizer as an
effort to “measure and analyse epidemiological data arising from the product
(vaccine) rollout.”
It further says Israel’s health ministry “is relying on receipt of product
doses… and on the product delivery rate by Pfizer to allow maintaining (a)
vaccination rate sufficient to achieve herd immunity and enough data as soon
as possible.”
“Both parties acknowledge that the viability and success of the project is
dependent on the rate and scope of vaccinations in Israel,” it continues.
– ‘Experiment on humans’ –
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month said that Israel had
agreed “to share with Pfizer and with the entire world the statistical data
that will help develop strategies for defeating the coronavirus.”
Israel’s arrangement with Pfizer would help make it “the first country in
the world to emerge from the coronavirus,” he predicted.
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a data privacy specialist at the Israel
Democracy Institute think-tank who spoke to AFP before the data sharing terms
were published, described Israel’s digitised medical data system as “a very
unique asset.”
She said regulators have justifiably given emergency approval to Pfizer’s
vaccine given the gravity of the pandemic, but that the company is eagerly
seeking more comprehensive data about its product.
“Israel can offer Pfizer, within like a month or six weeks, data on a
couple of million people,” she said.
But she warned that Israel’s rollout of the Pfizer vaccine amounted to
“the biggest experiment on humans in the 21st Century”.
Altshuler added that there should have been a more thorough public
conversation about the data-sharing element of the inoculation campaign.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1551 hrs