Thammasat University negotiates multiple deals for vaccines
A new deal has been struck between 2 private hospitals and Thammasat University to purchase and import 5 million Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. This is an addition to a recently negotiated deal to procure 2 million modern vaccines, making a total of 7 million doses that the school will help bring into Thailand after recently being approved by the government to import vaccines into the country.
The vaccines will be distributed to a network of private hospitals throughout Thailand. The school’s field hospital posted on Facebook saying that they spent the past 8 weeks working on getting vaccines at medical supplies for their patients and the Thai public.
Thammasat University is also attempting to procure a donation of three million additional Moderna vaccines from an unnamed Eastern European country. They are working with the Thai Embassy in that country to negotiate a deal and will take full responsibility for the logistics and expenses.
The new deal for 5 million Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was initially agreed on in late September with an unnamed private hospital. The hospital will bear all the costs to purchase and import the vaccines and, in exchange for brokering the deal, the university will receive several hundred thousand vaccines as a donation to give to people for free.
Similarly, the agreement that began in September to procure 2 million Moderna vaccines saw the university cooperating with another private hospital with the same mutually beneficial arrangement. The hospital will pay all the costs in procuring the vaccines and then donate 100,000 of them to give to Thammasat University’s field hospital patients and the general public free of charge.
Thammasat University has also made an agreement to conduct trials for an unnamed European vaccine as well as with a generic drug manufacturer in India for the Molnupiravir antiviral drug made in India. The medication is given as a 5-day treatment to Covid-19 patients. The university will acquire 200,000 Molnupiravir pills used to treat Covid-19 in exchange for covering the cost of the trials in Thailand.
SOURCE: Thai PBS World
