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Israel deals with existential threats on a daily basis, and is especially well-placed to handle a crisis of the magnitude that COVID-19 has brought on.
It made the tough choices early on by taking major precautionary steps, closing its borders and schools, shuttering businesses, and limiting all non-essential activities.

From respirators, start-ups and vaccines, through to drive-through testing centers and telemedicine, Israel is leading the global fight against coronavirus. In this regard, we are partnering our friends in Ghana in order to maximise the Ghanaian capability to cope with this pandemic.

The Israel Institute for Biological Research announced last week (5 May) a major breakthrough in finding an effective treatment for COVID-19.

The Institute, run by the Defence Ministry, has successfully isolated a monoclonal antibody that effectively neutralises the virus using blood samples taken from coronavirus patients, making it the first lab in the world to have achieved this major milestone.

The Institute is now seeking a biological manufacturer to mass produce the treatment for clinical use, while it continues to characterise this antibody and others.

Developing a vaccine

Israel has already set to work on developing a vaccine against COVID-19, and the same Institute for Biological Research has already made significant progress in developing its vaccine prototype, and is now preparing to commence animal trials.

Another Israeli research organisation, the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, had already developed an effective vaccine against an avian coronavirus found in poultry, which has a high genetic similarity to COVID-19, before the global coronavirus crisis took hold.

With four years of research behind it, MIGAL is now on track to be able to rapidly produce a vaccine against COVID-19, and is developing an oral vaccine that will be ready for in-vivo testing in 90 days. The United States recently granted a patent to Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Jonathan Gershoni for his innovative vaccine design against the corona family of viruses.

Confronting a global pandemic requires global partnership, and to this end, Prime Minister Netanyahu last two weeks participated in the Coronavirus Global Response, an international videoconference attended by dozens of world leaders at the initiative of the European Union, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Netanyahu pledged $60 million USD to the conference’s fundraising efforts. Israel’s contribution will be distributed to the World Health Organisation and various partner organisations for the purposes of developing and distributing treatments and vaccinations against coronavirus across the world.

MASHAV

In Ghana, the Israeli Aid and Cooperation Agency MASHAV, donated masks and medical gowns to the Ministry of Health and cooperating with high technology centers to transfer the aid into sustainable cooperation, by printing medical head shields for medical staff with 3D printers.

In Israel, Magen David Adom – Israel’s national emergency response service – has truly been at the forefront of managing the coronavirus crisis. From the outset, they’ve been sending emergency response staff to test potential coronavirus patients in their homes. They’ve also set up drive-through testing centres across the country, enabling thousands of Israelis to be tested every day, and offer special ambulances to residents without private vehicles to transport them from their homes to the testing centres.

Israel’s Air Force has joined forces with Microsoft Israel, Magen David Adom, and others to come up with a solution to the ventilator shortage the world is grappling with. Their innovative product uses a manual respiration balloon, but operates it automatically. Their respirator is ‘open source’, meaning that its design and assembly information is available to the Israeli and global public, and has the potential to be mass produced at a low cost.

Israeli start-ups

Israeli start-ups are also spearheading innovative ways to prevent the spread of the virus, and an innovation community geared specifically towards COVID-19 quickly formed in response to the coronavirus crisis. Soapy Care, a smart hygiene start-up that produces innovative hand-washing stations, has developed an anti-viral soap that can effectively kill coronavirus on hands. Facense is developing lightweight ‘smartglasses’, whose tiny sensors can detect COVID-19 symptoms and measure vital signs from afar.

Israel’s hospitals are also on the front lines of combatting the virus, and have led the way by sharing their best practises with global partners, several of them are Ghanaian. Sheba Hospital has implemented a first-of-its-kind telemedicine program to minimize contact between medical staff and coronavirus patients, treating not only inpatients, but also patients who are quarantined at home.

Israel Aerospace Industries have also teamed up with the Ministry of Defence and the Technion University to develop a remote monitoring system that effectively minimizes contact between carers and patients. Using advanced optical sensor technology, radar and AI, this new system can record patients’ vital signs from afar, diminishing the risk of exposure for medical staff.

International cooperation

In these days, we recognise the importance of international cooperation, thus initiated together with Ghana as the joint chair countries of the Science, Technology and Innovation forum in ECOSOC an international conference on the role of science, technology and innovation in the era of COVID-19.

The on-line conference on May 14-15 sought to analyse and review the current scientific knowledge and understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic, explore both existing and innovative measures to effectively respond the disease, discuss the challenges and opportunities offered by STI to advance the SDGs given major disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and look toward the future of STI cooperation in the post-COVID-19 world in way that can enhance global pandemic preparedness

These initiatives and breakthroughs represent the innovative spirit and decisiveness with which Israel has responded to, and managed, the coronavirus crisis. As the world continues to confront the many challenges that COVID-19 presents us with, we wish our friends in Ghana and around the world good health, and a quick return to routine.

The writer is the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone