Locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine passes inspection
Nine production lots of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by Siam Bioscience passed a quality inspection conducted by the Department of Medical Sciences on May 25, department director-general Dr Supphakit Siriluck said on Wednesday.
“Since then Siam Bioscience has submitted another five lots for inspection, which should take about three days to complete,” he said. “We found no problem in the first nine lots and expect the other five to pass the inspection as well.”
Supphakit said each batch submitted for inspection could contain a different number of doses.
“Normally the manufacturer sends a smaller batch of about 1 million to 2 million doses for inspection first, and then increases this to 2.5 million to 3 million doses per batch when they have more manufacturing experience or have streamlined the process,” he added.
Siam Bioscience has promised the Public Health Ministry that it would start delivering doses to vaccination units in June, while Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul confirmed on Tuesday that the locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine would be available for the masses from June 7 as per the original schedule.
So far, four kinds of vaccines have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and registered for use in Thailand – AstraZeneca, imported by AstraZeneca (Thailand) and manufactured domestically by Siam Bioscience; CoronaVac, or Sinovac, which is imported by the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation; Johnson & Johnson, imported by Janssen-Cilag; and the Moderna vaccine imported by Zuellig Pharma.