Health chiefs ordered to hurry procurement of three vaccines

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has urged the Public Health Ministry to speed up the procurement of potential Covid-19 vaccines from three sources.

Government Spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri told the media yesterday the prime minister is concerned about the situation and instructed those present at Wednesday’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration meeting to expedite efforts to find a vaccine.

Mr Anucha said the government has invested a billion baht in vaccine research, with 400 million baht allocated to domestic research trials which have reached the stage of seeking cooperation from the private sector to expand production for human trials early next year.

The rest of the money has been spent securing an agreement with British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca Plc for the domestic production and distribution of its own vaccine which has already begun human trials.

The cooperation between the government and AstraZeneca is expected to be finalised this month with an agreement for an initial 26 million doses which would cover 20% of the population.

Siam Bioscience Co Ltd, a Thai biopharmaceutical company, is expected to be involved in the collaboration and is ready to begin work next month, Mr Anucha said.

The third source comes in the form of a preorder of Covax, the result of a global Covid-19 vaccine research project led by the World Health Organization.

The Public Health Ministry applied to be put on the list of recipients in July and asked relevant state agencies to prepare for the purchase and deployment of the order, Mr Anucha said.