Israel's vaccination sprint: Around 14% of Israel's total population have already received the 1st dose of Covid19 vaccine. A sprint that has taken Israel to the top of the per capita vaccination chart.
How did the country of 9M people achieve this? A thread.
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Small size: Israel is a small country of 9 million people - slightly larger than Chennai and less than half of Mumbai's population. The size makes distribution/logistics easier and can't be compared to the challenges of larger countries. But, the story goes beyond it's size.
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Healthcare system: At the center of Israel's swift vaccination progress is the universal, vertically integrated, digitised healthcare system. Health care is a fundamental right in Israel, with mandatory health insurance run by 4 health maintenance organizations.
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Aggressive procurement: A strong healthcare system would not have helped, without availability of enough vaccines - especially when multiple countries are vying for the limited supply.
Interestingly, Israel did not place any early procurement orders for the Pfizer vaccine!
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They bet on Moderna and Oxford vaccines, placing order for millions of doses. But, when US FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine before Moderna, Israel scrambled and reportedly paid a premium to secure 8 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
A domestic vaccine is in Phase2 trials.
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Israel's vaccination program, named 'Give a shoulder' started off b/w 20-23rd December, targeting those above 60 years of age and healthcare workers/those with comorbidities. About 150 vaccination clinics have been setup and vaccine vans used for outer towns.
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With an aim to administer 1.5L doses/day, the programme has been working 7 days a week in some cases. Almost half of their population above 60 have been administered atleast 1 dose.
Pfizer vaccine has been used till now, with Moderna supplies expected in coming weeks.
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Innovations: Storage challenges meant that any unused Pfizer vaccine had to be discarded at end of the day. To prevent this, Israel allowed unscheduled walk-ins of even non priority group persons towards EOD to get vaccinated.
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Innovations: Pfizer supplied vaccines in 1000 dose packages. Israel became the first country to repackage this into smaller consignments that could be transported to smaller towns, coming up with special repackaging processes approved by Pfizer.
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Israel will be halting new vaccinations for 2 weeks in December, to administer the 2nd dose to those who received one earlier.
Criticisms: Palestinians in West Bank/Gaza strip have not been covered. It is beyond the scope of our discussion here.
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The size, socio-economic parameters etc. make Israel a non relevant comparison to India at several levels.
But relevant takeaways: Effective communication, use of technology, agile innovations, reduction of vaccine wastage and most importantly administrative coordination.
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Errata: In tweet 10/n, please read as - 'Israel will be halting new vaccinations for 2 weeks in JANUARY'.
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The expert committee of CDSCO met on 30/12, 01/01 and 02/01 to deliberate on accelerated approval of vaccines. Recommendations made on each day have been officially published.
📣 In this thread, we take a look at the timeline of events that lead to the approval. Must read.
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30th December: #Covaxin: Bharat Biotech presents status of Phase 3 trials and updated safety data.
📣 Committee recommends that updated safety and EFFICACY data of Phase 3 trials have to be presented for further consideration.
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30th December: #Covishield: SII presents safety and efficacy data of Phase 2/3 trials from UK, Brazil, SA along with data from ongoing Indian trials. SII mentions that UK has provided EUA.
📣 Committee asks for complete details of UK approval to be submitted.
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A (long) thread on Bharat Biotech - ICMR's #Covaxin vaccine.
1. Type of vaccine: #Covaxin is a whole virion INACTIVATED vaccine.
In such vaccines, the whole #sarscov2 virus is inactivated to make it harmless and used to make the vaccine. Seed virus provided by NIV Pune.
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2. How is it different from #Covishield? Covishield is a VIRAL VECTOR vaccine. Here, the spike protein of #sarscov2 is sequenced. A weakened virus that causes common cold in chimpanzees called Adenovirus is used as the vector to carry the spike protein in the vaccine.
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3. Phase 1 trial: 375 persons in trial, done across 11 sites in 9 states.
Age profile: 18 to 55.
375 persons divided into 4 groups. 3 groups of 100 each received 3 different formulations of the vaccine and 1 control group of 75 received placebo.
Dosage: 2 doses, 14 days.
Before we sign off from 2020, take few minutes and let us know how the year was for you.
Your experiences of a truly unique year, deserves to be documented!
1. Do you think 2020 was a good year for you personally.
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2. How did the pandemic affect your personal relationships after March 2020?
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3. How did the pandemic affect your professional/student life?
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#sarscov2mutation What does it mean for us?
Mutation of viruses is part of it's evolutionary process. Once inside the host, viruses start replicating. Errors during this replication process results in changes to the genetic makeup of the virus - leading to mutations.
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Depending on where in the genome the changes happen, mutation can impact the survivability of the virus. #SARSCoV2 is an RNA virus (like dengue) and is prone to more mutations than a DNA virus (eg. smallpox).
📣 As of Sept. abt. 12k mutations of #SARSCoV2 were documented.
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What about the new strain reported in UK? Named "VUI-202012/01" (Variant Under Investigation in Dec 2020), it has a set of 23 mutations (out of close to 30k genetic letters). Most notable being the change in spike protein that is used by the virus to bind to our host cells.
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This set of polls is for those of you who are students (school, college, doctoral).
The pandemic has been disruptive for you, with adoption of virtual learning, uncertainty around exams etc. Let us know how your experience has been.
1. Are you still having virtual classes?
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2. How effective have the virtual classes been, with respect to learning and comprehending subjects?
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3. How ENGAGING have the virtual classes been, compared to classroom teaching?
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