618 Sinovac vaccinated medical workers get Covid-19

After being fully inoculated with 2 doses of the Sinovac vaccine, more than 600 medical workers have been diagnosed with Covid-19 infections, according to the Public Health Ministry today. A total of 618 hospital and medical staffers have been infected with Covid-19 despite having received the Chinese-made vaccine.

It was not confirmed whether they were infected with the Delta variant that Sinovac has been proven to be ineffective against.

Over 677,000 workers in the medical field received two doses of Sinovac when vaccination efforts began in Thailand in February. Data from the Public Health Ministry from the beginning of April until yesterday shows that 618 of those later were infected with Covid-19. Of those infected, 1 medical staffer is in critical condition and 1 nurse has died from the disease.

Proposals had previously been made about giving an additional booster shot of a different vaccine to those who received the Sinovac vaccine after studies show that the Delta variant quickly spreading through Thailand is resistant to Sinovac. Experts recommend an mRNA vaccine like Pfizer or Moderna, but Thailand has yet to procure any.

The Department of Disease Control’s Deputy Director-General agreed with the suggestion at a press conference today, stating that a booster shot of AstraZeneca is likely now or perhaps when mRNA vaccines arrive in Thailand they will use those in the future. The DDC is set to discuss the idea tomorrow.

Thailand has a shortage of AstraZeneca vaccines after the local production facilities halved the amount expected to be produced for the country each month from 10 million to 5 million, but a donation of 1.05 million AstraZeneca vaccines have just arrived from Japan, earmarked for the sick and elderly in Bangkok mainly.

The United States is expected to deliver 1.5 million Pfizer vaccines later in the month as well, and Thailand has ordered an additional 20 million vaccines from Pfizer set to be delivered in later October at the soonest. Indonesia faced a similar problem of Sinovac vaccinated medical workers catching Covid-19 and they decided Friday that they would address the issue by providing Moderna vaccines as a booster shot to those vaccinated workers.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post