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By Panarat Thepgumpanat and Chayut Setboonsarng
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Doctors in Thailand have been given the green light to start giving booster shots of COVID-19 under the skin, rather than injecting them into muscles, officials said on Monday, with the aim of strengthening the immunity and expand vaccine supplies.
Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the method, which doctors have started to explore https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thailand-explore-injecting-coronavirus-vaccines-under-skin- 2021-08-19 last month, could be used at the discretion of healthcare professionals, provided it was supported by evidence.
Chalermpong Sukonthaphon, director of Vachira Hospital in Phuket, said his hospital was given the green light to use the technique from Friday as tests showed it triggered an immune response similar to the usual method.
“One dose of vaccine can be used for five intradermal injections,” Chalermpong told Reuters.
The people of Phuket were among the first to be vaccinated in Thailand, a prerequisite for the island’s reopening to foreign tourists vaccinated in July.
As of April https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-thailand-tourism-idUSKBN2BS02F, they received two doses of the vaccine from Sinovac, for which booster shots of other vaccines were issued in several countries after concerns about its resistance to the Delta COVID-19 variant.
Thailand has turned to unconventional approaches due to supply issues, despite the local manufacture of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
So far, only 21% of the estimated 72 million people living in the country have been fully immunized.
Authorities also decided to give separate injections of Sinovac’s vaccine followed by AstraZeneca, a technique that has yet to be adopted elsewhere.
Thailand has reported more than 1.4 million infections and 15,000 deaths, the majority since April this year.
(Edited by Martin Petty)
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