Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has announced plans for Thailand’s mass vaccination drive, with 50 million people to get their COVID-19 jabs by the end of this year. Thai Visa / NNT





 

By Paphamon Arayasukawat

   

BANGKOK (NNT) - Thailand is set to vaccinate 50 million people against COVID-19 this year with a target of 300,000 jabs daily, while the Prime Minister has ordered an improvement to the hospitalization and referral protocol for COVID-19 patients.

 

Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has announced plans for Thailand's mass vaccination drive, with 50 million people to get their COVID-19 jabs by the end of this year.

 

According to a post on his Facebook page, the Prime Minister in a meeting today with his advisory team set a target of 10-15 million doses of vaccine to be supplied each month, acquired from a variety of manufacturers in a coordinated effort between the government and the private sector.

 

He has called for an inclusive distribution of the vaccine throughout the country, with the responsibility shared clearly between government agencies and private firms to proactively vaccinate the people.

 

Vaccination centers shall be set up at venues such as convention centers, sports centers, hotels, and private hospitals, to help alleviate the workload at general hospitals and the public health system currently taking care of COVID-19 patients.

 

The government will also encourage capable private firms to provide injections to complement the government's vaccination campaign.

 

With all government and private vaccination centers available, the government expects the country to give 300,000 or more jabs to the people each day, in order to achieve the 50 million people target by the end of this year or sooner.

 

The Prime Minister has ordered an overhaul of the screening, hospital admissions, and patient transfer protocols to improve the efficiency.

 

Thailand has purchased and received 2.5 million doses of Sinovac's vaccine, plus 117,600 doses of AstraZeneca's. The country has mainly been using Sinovac's vaccine in its initial phase of vaccine rollout, mostly to healthcare professionals and frontline workers.

 

The Chinese government will also be donating 500,000 more doses of Sinovac's vaccine to Thailand, making three million of this vaccine type available in the country.

 

Thailand's mass vaccination drive among the general public is scheduled to start in June with the availability of the first batch of domestically produced AstraZeneca's vaccine, with a total of 61 million doses on order.

 

Meanwhile, the country has reached out to the Russian government to purchase 5-10 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, and to Pfizer to purchase 5-10 million doses for their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine.

 

The government has also enabled private firms to order vaccines from the manufacturers to be used at private hospitals or for their employees, provided the vaccine types are first authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drugs Administration.