Israel Projects COVID-19 Vaccine by Next Summer

Israel’s COVID-19 virus vaccine will be ready for use next July, according to Prof. Shmuel Shapira, director of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR). The institute, alongside the country’s Health Ministry and Defense Ministry, also says that human trials will begin on November 1. The trials will involve 80 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 55 in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Progress will depend on their responses to the vaccine. If they respond well and develop antibodies, an additional 960 people will join the testing regimen in December. If all goes well, some 30,000 more will join a Stage Three trial in the spring. According to the IIBR, some 25,000 doses of the vaccine have already been bottled, while another million have been produced and are awaiting the bottling process. The facility began working on the vaccine nine months ago, according to Shapira.