Israeli President Isaac Herzog received the third shot of the coronavirus vaccine on Friday, kicking off a campaign to give booster doses to people aged over 60 as part of efforts to slow the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

Herzog, 60, received a booster dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. He said he was proud to launch the booster vaccination initiative "which is so vital to enable normal circumstances of life as much as possible in this very challenging pandemic".

The president was accompanied by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who urged the importance of booster shots in fighting the pandemic and pledged that Israel would share all the information it gleaned from the initiative.

"Israel is a pioneer in going ahead with the third dose for older people of the age of 60 and above. The fight against the COVID pandemic is a global fight. The only way we can defeat COVID is together," Bennett said.