1 million AstraZeneca vaccines from Japan for elderly in Bangkok

Japan recently donated just over 1 million AstraZeneca vaccines to Thailand in hopes of battling the surging Covid-19 outbreaks hammering the country, and today the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration announce plans to give those vaccines to the elderly in Bangkok.

The 1.05 million vaccines that arrived today from Japan will be earmarked for senior citizens, both Thai nationals and foreigners currently in Thailand. Those over the age of 60 and also anyone with one of the 7 chronic diseases designated as high-risk for Covid-19 will be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine, regardless of nationality.

The CCSA is focusing Covid-19 vaccination, especially with the AstraZeneca vaccine, on 2 categories – the old and at-risk, and the greater Bangkok area. Bangkok is seeing an unprecedented surge in outbreaks and is going into harsh restrictions including a 9 pm curfew beginning Monday.

Vaccinating elderly people and those at high risk in Bangkok is essential and the AstraZeneca vaccine provides stronger protection against the rapidly spreading Delta variant that recent studies have shown the Sinovac vaccine most commonly used in Thailand to be ineffective against.

The AstraZeneca vaccines donated by Japan help make up some of the shortfall in Siam Bioscience’s production of the vaccine within Thailand. The plan to produce 10 million a month for use in Thailand was recently reduced to just 5 million vaccines a month.

Plans laid out by the CCSA include vaccinating Bangkok area elderly and at risk, as well as students, diplomats, athletes and people planning overseas travel that requires vaccination. Pfizer vaccines were also discussed as a necessity to be given to healthcare workers already vaccinated with Sinovac to provide protection against the Covid-19 Delta variant.

They also covered in their meeting today that mainly focused on Bangkok lockdown measures plans to open more testing centres after Bangkok centres have been overrun by people seeking testing with some resorting to camping out to receive a test.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post