ECCT TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE WEBINAR
Covid-19 vaccination practice: Lessons from Israel

Guest speaker
Dr Manfred Green, Professor of Public Health, University of Haifa

15:00 – 16:00 (Taiwan time), Wednesday, 17 March 2021
Sign-in instructions will be emailed to all registered participants prior to the webinar

Israel is currently leading the world in the drive to vaccinate its population against Covid-19. The country started its vaccination campaign in late December and, as of late February, around three million people or about a third of the country’s citizens had already been vaccinated. The figure is significantly higher than any other country, including the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe.

Israel has now begun to ease restrictions after data from its health ministry emerged claiming that the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine was 98.9% effective at preventing hospitalisations and death caused by Covid-19. Citing the data, the Israeli health ministry also said that the rate of Covid-19 infections also declined 95.8% among people who received both shots of the vaccine, and that the vaccine was also 98% effective in preventing infections that prompted fever or breathing problems.

In late December, Health Ministry Director-General Chezy Levy said Israel's goal is to vaccinate about 60% of the country's population by the end of the first quarter of 2021.

What has Israel done to achieve these results and what can other countries learn from Israel’s experience? At this event our speaker will give an overview of Israel’s vaccine preparedness and practice and share lessons from the experience.

About the speaker
Professor Manfred Green is a physician epidemiologist and Professor of Public Health at the University of Haifa. Previously he was the founding director of the Israel Center for Disease Control, and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the Tel Aviv University. In 2008, he took up the position as head of the School of Public Health at the University of Haifa. In 2015, he was appointed director of the International Master of Public Health programme in Health Systems Administration and Global Health Leadership. His research interests include epidemiologic methods, health disparities, compliance with vaccination and the immune response to vaccines, and the prevention and management of potential pandemics and bioterrorism incidents.

He heads the Israeli National Verification Committees on the eradication of polio, measles and rubella, and is a member of national advisory councils on cancer, cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases and immunisation. He is chairman of the scientific committee of the Research and Development Center in Kfar Kara, Israel. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Statistics from the University of the Witwatersrand, and studied medicine at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, after which he completed MPH and PhD degrees in the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

NT$250 for members and NT$250 for members' guest(s)
Note: Participation will be limited to 50 people
*To cancel without penalty, written cancellations must be received 24 hours prior to the event.