Dr. Nakorn Premsri, Photo: National Vaccine Institute website
Thailand’s National Vaccine Institute (NVI) Director Nakorn Premsri on Wednesday offered an apology to the public for a slow and inadequate COVID-19 vaccine rollout, saying mutations of the virus were unforeseen, while promising Thailand will join the COVAX program to receive donated vaccines next year.
“I apologise to the people that the National Vaccine Institute has not managed to procure a sufficient amount of vaccines to the unforeseen situation, although we have tried our best. The mutations (of the virus) were something that could not be predicted, which have caused a more rapid spread than last year. The vaccine procurement effort did not match the current situation,” Dr. Nakorn said.
Thailand is in the process of joining COVAX, or the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, which is a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines directed by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The NVI will soon send formal communications to Gavi, for negotiations on vaccines to be received, said Dr. Nakorn.
92 low-to-medium-income countries have joined COVAX program, in which they would receive donated WHO-approved vaccines from richer countries, like the US, the UK, the EU, China and Japan.
Although Thailand is not yet part of the program, about 1.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccine will be donated by the US government in the coming days.
Thailand has only received 14.5 million doses of China’s Sinovac, two million doses of Sinopharm, also from China, and about 9.2 million doses of the UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca, mostly locally produced by Siam Bioscience, as of July 16th. Only about 3.51 million people, or 5% of the entire population, has been fully vaccinated.