Thai firm ready to supply AstraZeneca vaccine

Thailand’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout is about pick up speed as local medical science company, Siam Bioscience, announced it was ready to start supplying the government with the AstraZeneca vaccine from its production facility, with the Prime Minister expecting six million doses tobe delivered this month.

Officially, Thailand’s national vaccination drive kicked off last week, although some patients in high-risk groups had already been receiving inoculations. In the national program, the Kingdom will acquire 100 million doses to inoculate 70 percent of the population of 69 million people before the end of 2021.

Most of the doses will be from AstraZeneca. Siam Bioscience received a license from AstraZeneca to manufacture its vaccine in Thailand several months ago and has built a facility to produce the formula. Following successful evaluations by laboratories in Europe and the United States of the samples turned out by Siam Bioscience, the company has now gone into full production.

Thailand has one of the strongest public health systems among middle-income and developing nations.

The government has also reached agreements to import the AstraZeneca vaccine from other sources. And it has also secured several million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine. Meanwhile, a deal is on the horizon with Pfizer to acquire some of its vaccines, and also with Moderna.

With Siam Bioscience in full production, Thailand should reach a point in a few months where it will have more vaccines that are needed for the population. The government said it intends to sell or donate the surplus to other developing countries, particularly those in the Southeast Asian region, that are in need.

Photo courtesy of https://thainews.prd.go.th/