Medical frontliners prioritized for donated U.S. vaccines

Thailand plans to prioritize healthcare workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response to receive half of the 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine the U.S. government has donated to the Kingdom.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul issued public statements extending their appreciation to the U.S. and the administration of President Joseph Biden for the generosity in donating the vaccines. These Pfizer vaccine doses began arriving in Thailand last week.

Thailand is trying to contain a fourth wave of COVID-19. The government began its vaccine rollout in June and has one company manufacturing the AstraZeneca vaccine. Frontliners in Thailand have been working hard to inoculate as many people as possible.

Besides the 700,000 vaccine doses reserved for the healthcare workers, 645,000 doses would be allocated to the elderly and patients with a list of underlying conditions, children 12 years and older, and women who are 12 or more weeks pregnant.

To support medical workers, there are more and more Thais volunteering to help throughout the country. The volunteers have been praised by the World Health Organization (WHO) as heroes in Kingdom.

“Thailand’s health volunteers are unsung heroes working to support the prevention, detection and reporting of COVID-19,” said Daniel Kertesz, WHO representative for Thailand.

Apart from the temperature checks, the front-line health volunteers help the government collect daily health information and watch for flare-ups in infections.

Photo courtesy of: https://www.bot.or.th/Thai/ResearchAndPublications/articles/Pages/Article_07Jul2020.aspx