Opinion
A teenager receives a vaccination against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 24, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun.
HonestReporting has successfully countered (see here, here, and here) various false media narratives about Israel’s ongoing battle against the coronavirus. Perhaps most pervasive has been the accusation that Jerusalem was preventing the Palestinians from obtaining vaccines. However, the Jewish state has now become the first nation in the world to share COVID-19 inoculations with any external population. Moreover, the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister has announced that tens of thousands of additional jabs would soon be arriving in Ramallah.
Israeli Hospital Partners With National Institutes of Health to Study and Combat COVID-19
Last April, the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, located near Tel Aviv, announced the signing of an “emergency agreement” with the Maryland-based National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct applied scientific and clinical research studies in order to develop coronavirus-related treatments.
The hospital committed to supplying the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center with blood samples, plasma and the COVID-19 virus itself from infected patients in Israel. This was all made possible due to a series of clinical trials the hospital was conducting on possible treatments, including those being developed by major pharmaceutical companies.