Moderna vaccines scheduled to arrive weekly from November

Neill FrondePublished: 20:49, 14 October 2021| Updated: 20:49, 14 October 2021

210 1 minute read

Moderna vaccines scheduled to arrive weekly from November — Flickr Jernej Furman

PHOTO: Moderna vaccines will start arriving in November. (via Flickr Jernej Furman)

The good vaccine news for Thailand keeps coming! After the World Health Organisation approved Thai-made AstraZeneca for emergency use, now word has been released to expect Moderna vaccines to finally arrive in Thailand in November.

Zuellig Pharma, the company that distributes the much sought after Moderna mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, have said to expect weekly shipments to arrive in Thailand with the first one landing in November.

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Though originally expected to arrive this month, there hadn’t been word of any shipments to give hope for people in Thailand, many of whom ordered Moderna vaccination from private hospitals and clinics. ZP Therapeutics Zuellig Pharma Thailand’s general manager apologised for the delay and said they did everything in their power to get the vaccines into the country as fast as possible.

They said that a rush of overwhelming demand, coupled with production delays, contributed to the lateness of vaccine deliveries. Zuellig Pharma was working with Moderna to find more production sources to accelerate manufacturing and had looked for sources in Europe and the United States.

Now they expect between 100,000 and 300,000 Moderna vaccines to be delivered to Thailand every week starting next month. The weekly shipments will continue until Zuellig Pharma delivers 1.9 million Moderna vaccines by the end of the fourth quarter of 2021.

The distributors and manufacturers would still have more Moderna vaccines to deliver, and the remaining doses they are assuring will be delivered by the end of the first quarter of next year. They say they can’t guarantee an exact date of delivery as the shipments still face several steps in the distribution procedure and the vaccines still need to go through the producer’s quality control process.

The finalised dates for each shipment are expected to be confirmed only 1 to 2 weeks before the delivery is received. This procedure is said to be not just for Thailand, but for every country that purchased Moderna vaccines.

Neill Fronde

Neill is a journalist from the United States with 10+ years broadcasting experience and national news and magazine publications. He graduated with a degree in journalism and communications from the University of California and has been living in Thailand since 2014.