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BANGKOK – Thailand’s plan to produce the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine locally is on track to be ready to begin mass inoculations in June, with the capacity to produce up to 18 million doses per month, a senior official said Friday.
It was not yet clear how many would go to Thai citizens and how many would be exported to other Southeast Asian countries under a deal with AstraZeneca that has been criticized by opposition critics for being too slow and lacking in transparency.
Thailand’s vaccine strategy revolves around the production of AstraZeneca injections by local firm Siam Bioscience, owned by the Thai king’s vast business holdings.
Testing of the first batches should be completed by the end of May, the director of the National Vaccine Institute, Nakorn Premsri, told Reuters in an interview.
“The industrial batch will come out in June,” Nakorn said.
Siam Bioscience underwent a five-day virtual audit in December and all batches it produces will also undergo quality testing, AstraZeneca said in a statement.
Nakorn said Thailand chose to produce locally because it wanted to safeguard its own vaccine supply amid the global rush to protect itself against a virus that has killed more than two million people around the world.
Thailand signed the deal with AstraZeneca in October, putting it months behind nations like the UK, the US and India.
Thailand ordered 61 million doses of AstraZeneca manufactured locally, enough for 30.5 million people, or just over half of the adult population, excluding people under 18 years of age and pregnant women.
Until June, Thailand will depend on imported vaccines.
The first 50,000 imported doses of AstraZeneca are expected in February and 100,000 more in the coming months, but on Friday Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul warned that supply problems in Europe could cause delays.
Thailand has also ordered two million doses of Sinovac Biotech Ltd vaccines from China with 200,000 doses scheduled for February, although it has yet to be approved by the regulator.
For most of last year, Thailand was able to keep infections low, but a second wave erupted in December, bringing total cases to 17,023 and 76 deaths. -Reuters
