Leading Thai doctor calls on government to accelerate vaccine rollout

A prominent Thai doctor has called on the government to ramp up the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines, amid concerns at the low number of doses administered to date. The Bangkok Post quotes Dr Prasit Watanapa from Siriraj Hospital, who used a Facebook Live broadcast to urge officials to do more. He says Thailand must accelerate efforts to achieve herd immunity and end the third wave as soon as possible.

“The number of Thais vaccinated at the moment is not enough to stop the outbreak of the disease. The epidemic situation will improve within months if the government can continue to provide people with 300,000 vaccine doses per day.”

According to the Bangkok Post report, Prasit says the government must purchase more vaccine doses, but expressed confidence that Siam Bioscience may be able to double its production capacity soon.

Prasit also spoke about the global Covid-19 situation, pointing out that daily new infections have nearly halved, from 600,000 to 350,000. He says daily deaths from the virus have dropped from 12,000 to 7,000, which is mainly the result of vaccination. According to data shared by Prasit, around 2.3 billion people globally have received either 1 or 2 doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, but most of those are in developed countries.

“The vaccine can stop infections and prevent loss generally. The number of infected patients in Thailand has already surpassed 200,000 since the outbreak happened last year. However, if we can maintain the target of 300,000 shots given per day, we can see good results in months.”

SOURCE: Bangkok Post