Thailand to get China’s Sinovac Biotech Covid-19 vaccine next month

In the midst of a new wave of Covid-19 infections, Thailand will get 2 million vaccine doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech. The first batch of 200,000 doses will arrive next month, according to the Public Health Ministry. Another 800,000 doses will arrive in March and the last order of 1 million doses will arrive in April.

Since the outbreak last month at a Samut Sakhon seafood market, Thailand health officials have been racing to curb the spread of the virus. Thailand’s first wave of infections peaked at 1,451 active cases back in April when strict lockdown measures and travel restrictions were in place nationwide. The country now has 4,022 active Covid-19 cases.

The Thai company Siam Bioscience is in the process of producing AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine which was developed in partnership with Oxford University. That vaccine is planned to be available to the public in May. The Thai government set a goal to vaccinate half of the population, around 33 million people, by the end of the year.

A private hospital in Bangkok was recently told to remove advertising to pre-order Covid-19 vaccines from the US biotech firm Moderna. The vaccine has been approved by food and drug authorities in Canada and the US, but the vaccine still needs advertising from Thailand’s FDA.

SOURCE: Bloomberg