חיסון נגד קורונה
חיסון נגד קורונהצילום: ISTOCK

The Pfizer pharmaceutical organization rejected the request of Israel's Health Ministry to continue to use its coronavirus vaccines even after their initial expiration date, Channel 12 News reported.

The reason for the rejection is because the vaccines are too new and there is not enough data to approve their use beyond their expiration dates.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of vaccines Israel had purchased will go to waste this month as they reach their expiration dates.

The Health Ministry's refrigerators contain about 1.4 million Pfizer vaccines, which will expire at the end of the month. Israel is in advanced talks with Britain over the exchange of vaccines, in which the British will receive about a million doses and in return they will deliver to Israel vaccines from the next shipment they will receive in September.

The ministry will also begin to forbid HMOs from giving out first doses of the vaccine in order to ensure there are enough supplies to administer second doses to those waiting for them.

This may be why Israel has started using the 200,000 vaccines of the Modern Company, which are used to vaccinate people aged 18 and over. Israel had previously refrained from using the Moderna vaccines to avoid mixing the two vaccines.

Earlier, the Health Ministry reported that 307 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed over the last day, with five new serious cases, raising the total number of serious cases to 29.