• Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

Housebound Elderly in Israel to be Given Jabs at Home

Mar 18, 2021

In recent news, more than 105,000 citizens of the State of Israel have been reported to be housebound. Thus, the Health Ministry announced that these people will be vaccinated at their homes. 

This new initiative was brought forth by Yuli Edelstein, the Health Minister, as well as Chezy Levy, the director-general of the Health Ministry. The two announced that they will be giving more details about this after a pilot program is conducted, which has been scheduled for Thursday. 

Levy noted that when the program was first started, it was fairly obvious that the citizens who are housebound are a special group. Most of these people are elderly and have challenging medical conditions. 

Edelstein announced that no citizen in the group will be left behind. He reasserted that there will be no person in the country who wants to get vaccinated but, does not have the access or means to do so. 

As per the plan, the jab will be administered in a single shot, which is a project being developed together by Pfizer and the pharmaceutical department of the Health Ministry. 

Nurses from hospitals and the staff of Magen David Adom will get together and travel door to door, in order to administer the vaccine. 

Edelstein stated that he is quite happy that a solution has been found for people who cannot leave their homes. He observed that it is difficult for them to reach vaccination centers. The Minister went on to thank health funds for their dedication to the cause.

As of now, more than 77,000 housebound citizens of Israel have been given the vaccine. This counts for around 75% of the specific population group. They mostly travelled through ambulances to reach vaccination centers to get the jab. 

On the other hand, the infection rate in the country is steadily declining. More than 110,000 vaccines were given on Sunday alone. Overall, around 5.2 million citizens have been given at least a single jab of the coronavirus vaccine. Whereas, some 4.29 million have received both the shots. 

Levy further noted that 70% of the people from this group were able to get vaccinated on their own. But, for those who cannot do that, this is the perfect solution. According to the director-general, this is the best way for the country to stay on track and vaccinate over 95% of the people, who are aged over 50. 

In other news, by now Israel has spent around NIS 2.6 billion on vaccines. This was announced by MK Moshe Gafni, the head of the Knesset Finance Committee, against the backdrop of the declining infection rate in the country. 

Many people have been asking the government to inform them of how much they have paid to Pfizer. The pharmaceutical company agreed to supply Israel with enough vaccines to vaccinate its entire adult population, despite the fact that it was low on production and demand was increasing. 

The committee also just recently got together to approve of an additional budget of around NIS 2 billion for the purpose of the vaccination campaign. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *