Photo by NOEL CELIS / AFP
Thailand’s Medical Sciences Department (MSD) and Siriraj Hospital have revealed the results of their research into the immunity levels of those inoculated with two different makes of vaccine, as it pertains to the body’s ability to fight the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Dr. Supakit Sirilak, Director-General of the MSD said that those inoculated with one dose of Sinovac and AstraZeneca for the second dose have higher antibody levels, compared to those inoculated with two doses of Sinovac, and the same levels as those inoculated with two doses of AstraZeneca.
However, AstraZeneca for the first dose and Sinovac for the second dose is not recommended.
He also revealed that using AstraZeneca as a third booster dose will increase the immunity levels by up to 11 times, compared to using Sinopharm as the booster dose, which will increases immunity levels by only 2.5 times.
The testing was done using the Plaque Reduction Neutralization Test on six groups of volunteers.
• The first group were those vaccinated with two doses of Sinovac.
• The second group were those vaccinate with two doses of AstraZeneca
• The third group were those vaccinated with Sinovac for the first dose and two doses of AstraZeneca
• The fourth group were those vaccinated with AstraZeneca as the first dose and then Sinovac.
• The fifth group were those vaccinated with two doses of Sinovac and Sinopharm as a third booster shot.
• The last group were those vaccinated with two doses of Sinovac and AstraZeneca as a third booster shot.
Thailand has administered 25.1 million doses of vaccine to date. Of these, 11 million were Sinovac, followed by 10 million doses of AstraZeneca, two million doses of Sinopharm and about 300,000 doses of Pfizer.