Fact check: Israel is not about to release a coronavirus vaccine
An Israeli scientist works at a laboratory at the MIGAL Research Institute in Kiryat Shmona in the upper Galilee in northern Israel on February 27, 2020 Image by JALAA MAREY/AFP via Getty Images
By Molly Boigon March 23, 2020
Despite rumors swirling online to the contrary, Israel has not developed and tested a vaccine for coronavirus.
The rumor appears to have started with a Facebook post that read, “A vaccine for CoronaVirus has just been approved in Israel. It is being produced in hundreds of thousands as we speak and expected to be in the US within 14 days!” Israel’s reputation as the “Start-Up Nation,” a tech, biotech and engineering juggernaut, made the rumor seem more credible.
Is there really a vaccine from Israel for Covid-19? @NCDCgov is this fake news? I am asking cos the news is spreading. https://t.co/e1WGWAX4Yv
— Dash™? (@Mhazi_Dash) March 23, 2020
I hope that this news from #Israel proves correct. If their #coronavirus #vaccine proves effective those who the #boycott & #divest from Israel should put their mouth where their money is & not to use the vaccine. #bds https://t.co/wFld9vYFr3
— joshua rosner (@JoshRosner) March 23, 2020
In fact, Haaretz reports that Israel’s Institute for Biological Research is expected to announce the development of a vaccine, but clinical trials and other experiments may take months before the vaccine is made available to the public.
Similarly, MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, which is state-funded, is adapting an bronchial virus vaccine to function as a COVID-19 vaccine.
One former Health Ministry official told the Times of Israel that it could be 18 months before a vaccine is ready.
Molly Boigon is an investigative reporter at the Forward. Contact her at boigon@forward.com or follow her on Twitter @MollyBoigon
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