(JPost.com) Israel intends to donate a “very significant” number of doses of coronavirus vaccines to African countries, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said. “It is a global pandemic and we must deal with this crisis from a global perspective.”

The move comes after the development of the Omicron variant in South Africa, where less than 25% of the country is vaccinated. In general, only around 6% of the continent has been inoculated. In some African countries, less than 1% of citizens have had the jab.

Israel launched its vaccination campaign on December 20, and has since then administered more than 16 million doses, including four million third shots.

The Omicron variant highlighted what the WHO has been stressing: “No one is safe from COVID-19 until everyone is safe,” because the more the virus replicates the more likely it is to mutate.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said pushing for booster shots is important because it works in less than a week, and because people who only got jabbed twice are far more likely to catch COVID-19.

“People who haven’t gotten vaccinated at this point, two years into the pandemic, will be hard to convince,” Bennett said. “It is much easier to convince those who were already vaccinated twice to do it a third time.”

“Coronavirus, especially the new variant, is a threat to all of our countries and the entire world,” he stated. “When we work together on the matter we are much more effective. Together we can protect our countries, our people and our economies.”