Ministry of Health: The number of infected with the Omicron variant has risen to 11

The Ministry of Health announced on Sunday evening that the number of those infected with the Omicron variant in Israel has risen to 11. According to the ministry statement, five of those infected returned from South Africa, two returned from France, one returned from Malawi, one from England and another from the US. Of the verified, four are not vaccinated, six are vaccinated in a third dose and another verified is vaccinated with the Astra-Zanka vaccine. According to the ministry's announcement, there are fears that another 24 people have been infected with the new strain of corona virus: 12 of them have returned from abroad and 12 have not been abroad recently.

The Ministry of Health is considering approving a fourth dose of vaccine for patients with suppressed immune systems, including those suffering from autoimmune diseases, organ transplants and oncology patients. An integrated forum of the team for the treatment of epidemics (ZTM) and the Immunization Committee is expected to discuss the issue this coming Tuesday.
The discussion will take place in light of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendation published on October 27, according to which immunocompromised patients over the age of 18 may need an additional vaccine dose six months after receiving the third dose.
In about two weeks it will be five months since it was approved to vaccinate with a third vaccine suppressed by the immune system. This, after many of them had a very low level of antibodies or no antibodies were found at all. To date, no official data have been released indicating further decline in antibody levels among this group. However, the director of the Infection Prevention Unit at Sheba Hospital, Prof. Gili Regev Yochai, told Haaretz that "the booster helped, but much less for immunocompromised patients."
Ministry of Health officials place special emphasis on protecting those who have been vaccinated, due to the fact that despite their relatively low proportion in the population, about 1% of deaths in Israel are among them. According to a study conducted at Sheba Hospital, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the risk among immunocompromised people that the level of antibodies will be zero after six months is 50% among men aged 65 and over, and 30% among women aged 65 and over. The situation is similar among young patients as well. Among immunocompromised men aged 45 to 65 the chance is 44%, and among immunosuppressed women in this age group the chance is 28%.
In Israel, various studies have been conducted that deal with the effectiveness of vaccines among vaccine-suppressed people. In April, an Israeli study was published that claimed that the vaccine is effective and safe even for patients suffering from autoimmune rheumatic diseases - chronic diseases that are characterized by a disruption of the immune system that causes it to attack the body itself. According to the study conducted at the Rheumatology Institute at Ichilov Hospital, 86% of the patients who participated in the study developed antibodies to a sufficient level of protection against the virus after receiving the vaccine. In addition, it was found that the prevalence of side effects and their severity among them is similar to those in the general population.