Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he has instructed government researchers to work on developing and then producing a coronavirus vaccine, adding that it was inevitable that the virus, which has killed 305 people, all of one of whom died in China, would spread to Israel.
"Our goal is first of all to postpone the virus' arrival in Israel. I say 'postpone' because it is inevitable that it will arrive," Netanyahu said. The aim, he said, is then to identify those infected, to quarantine them at home for two weeks and to treat them.
"We are also briefing the Palestinian Authority about all the preventative steps and public health [issues] that they also need to take into account," he added.
Netanyahu said that Israel's Institute for Biological Research and the Health Ministry have been tasked with creating a vaccine to help address the spread of the virus. T
On Friday, Israel's Foreign Ministry recommended against travel to China and urged all residents of Israel in China to leave after suspending all direct flights to the country on Thursday. Israel is barring the entry of anyone who has visited China in the past two weeks and is not an Israeli citizen or resident.
The spread of the coronavirus over the past two months to 18 countries prompted the World Health Organization on Thursday to declare a global emergency.
