Thailand changes its vaccination policy

Thailand has made some changes in the vaccination policy. It is about mixing China’s Sinovac with the AstraZeneca vaccines to improve protection. Instead of the two Sinovac shots, people will now receive the AstraZeneca vaccine after their first shot of Sinovac.

The health workers have been fully vaccinated with the Sinocvac. They will now receive the third booster from various vaccines. It can either be the AstraZeneca vaccine or the mRNA vaccines like BioNTech or Pfizer. This third dose will be available after three or four weeks of the second Sinovac jab.

AstraZeneca is currently the only other vaccine that is available in the country with the Pfizer/ BioNTech shots from the US. It is all set to arrive soon. Thailand first received its Sinovac vaccines from China. It began to give shots to the health workers in February.

The health ministry said on Sunday that the vaccination of more than 677000 medical staff was successful. They have been vaccinated with the Sinovac. In April and July, there were 618 cases of covid. A nurse has died. One more medical staff is still in critical condition.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine has shown the results from Chile.

Sinovac has an efficiency rate of 65.9% against Covid-19. It is 87.5% effective in preventing hospitalization and 86.3% effective in preventing death.

Thailand is currently amid a new spike of infections. It reported 9418 cases on Sunday. The death toll for the previous day was standing near 91, which is also a record number.

There are more concerns over the efficacy of the Chinese vaccine in the rise of the cases. One clinic selling the US Moderna vaccine on an online platform saw its offer selling out in a few minutes. Thailand has seen more than 33000 cases of covid and 27111 deaths since the beginning. Thus they are changing their vaccination policy. The rising risk of the Delta virus is also another reason.

Credits: BBC