Child vaccinations in Israel: With mobile teams in schools

Children in Israel have been vaccinated against Corona since November. However, the demand is not particularly high. That is why vaccination teams are now coming to schools. It is hoped that this will drive the quota up.

“Where do you want the syringe to go?” The paramedic asks the little boy. “In the left arm or more in the shoulder?” “Where it hurts less,” says the boy. “A very clever answer,” praised the paramedic.

It’s just after eight in the morning at a primary school in Ramla, a half-hour drive from Tel Aviv. Netanel Eitan, paramedic with the aid organization Magen David Adom, has already vaccinated a dozen or so schoolchildren. “The demand is good,” says Eitan. “It is the first day that we are in schools and the children come – some with their parents, some with their permission. We hope that there will be more. We are only at the beginning of the campaign.”

Mobile teams in schools

The vaccination campaign for five to eleven year olds in Israel began in mid-November. Initially, the vaccinations were mainly offered in the health centers of the health insurance companies. However, the demand was not very high: three weeks after the start of the campaign, only 13 percent of the 1.2 million children in the affected age group had been vaccinated for the first time, according to official information.

Now mobile teams in schools are supposed to help push the quota up. “We have 480 students here,” says Dorit Nevo, the headmistress in Ramla: “Today, between 20 and 25 children can be vaccinated. That is not many, but I think that after the start today, more parents will be in favor of the vaccination decide because they realize that it doesn’t hurt and that there are no side effects. “

Many parents are careful

In surveys conducted before the vaccination campaign began, only 40 to 50 percent of parents said they wanted their children to be vaccinated. Many parents are cautious, says headmistress Dorit: “Most parents wait to see how the vaccination goes down with the children. At the moment we have no children here who are infected and that’s why there is no pressure to go and vaccinate no hysteria among parents. “

Vaccination rate different

Israel’s Ministry of Health announced that the vaccination rate among children from socially better off places is higher than in poorer cities and villages. In addition, the vaccination skepticism among strictly religious Jewish parents or Arab Israelis is more widespread than the population average. An influential ultra-Orthodox rabbi received death threats after promoting child vaccination.

Promotion of child vaccinations

Ramla, however, is neither a strictly religious nor a rich city. 90 percent of the children at the school come from Russian immigrant families. We speak to a man who accompanied his son to the first vaccination: “A lot of people believe in conspiracy theories or something else – but we have thought it over carefully and believe in what we are doing. My impression is that the people who are against a vaccination, don’t actually have enough information and only do what the neighbor tells them to do, “he says.

Israel’s government politicians and health experts tirelessly promote child vaccinations and point to the increasing number of infections among the five to eleven year olds and the risks posed by the Omikron variant. So far, however, there has been no sign of a sharp increase in the vaccination rate – this is one of the reasons why the offerings at schools are to be expanded.