Thailand's Public Health Ministry says it will evaluate the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines in people who have already received them to see if they help people are developing immunity to the virus. The Department of Medical Services says it will collaborate with top university medical faculties and expects to have resulted in two months.
According to Somsak Akksilp of the DMS, the results will determine Thailand's vaccination policy for the coming year. According to a Bangkok Post report, the DMS chief says that vaccines cannot guarantee lifelong protection from infection and that more information on their efficacy among Thais is needed.
“As we look for a vaccine that is appropriate for Thais, this will be a major factor in our policy for the next year. The ministry's team and its partners will concern a vaccine efficiency study that will include people who received vaccines from both Sinovac and AstraZeneca. We have information about its efficiency from other countries, but we don't have such information about Thais. We must verify the vaccine's efficiency to have an appropriate vaccine for the next year.”
Among the universities involved in the project, Chulalongkorn's faculty of medicine will study immunity levels in vaccinated members of the public. A similar study will be conducted at Siriraj Hospital on medical staff from Mahidol University's faculty of medicine. A secondary study will be conducted with kidney disease patients at Mahidol University of medicine's Ramathibodi Hospital. The DMS also aims to investigate the vaccine efficacy of cancer patients that have already been vaccinated.
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