No barrier to vaccine import but FDA approval needed: Anutin
The government is not blocking the private sector from importing a Covid-19 vaccine, Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Wednesday. However, every step of the safety review process must be followed, he insisted.
He said that importing a vaccine must first be approved by the Food and Drug Administation (FDA) and the Department of Medical Sciences so it is effective and safe.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet approved purchase of an additional 35 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, bringing the total reservation to 63 million doses. The vaccine, expected by the end of January, is to be certified by the FDA before use.
Some two million doses of a vaccine bought from China will first be injected into 200,000 “vulnerable” people next month, like medical personnel, frontline health workers, village health volunteers and people with severe symptoms at risk of infection.
Health officials have not yet medically accepted the public use of test kits (rapid tests) to detect Covid-19, while the FDA has notified people to be careful of false negative results from the kits as these can lead to infections spreading. It instead asked the public to go to hospital for Covid-19 tests.