Thailand may miss vaccination target for July-August due to undersupply of AstraZeneca

“We have reserved 61 million doses with AstraZeneca to be delivered within this year, or about one-third of their total manufacturing capacity of 180 million doses per year. However the company said that in July and August, they have to deliver the vaccine to other countries as well, so the supply to Thailand in the next two months could be lower than the 6 million doses delivered in June,” he said.

“If we want to achieve the vaccination target of 10 million doses per month, we will have to use vaccine from other sources.”

When asked about the possibility of getting AstraZeneca to supply vaccines only to Thailand, Nakorn said that such a move could affect international relations, especially with many Southeast Asian nations also relying on the supply of AstraZeneca vaccine to keep the outbreak under control.

Nakorn said Sinovac could be an alternative to make up for the shortfall in AstraZeneca supply to help achieve the 10 million inoculation target in the next two months.

“Although we have ordered 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, it is unlikely that the company will be able to deliver within the third quarter,” he said.

“We estimate the earliest supplies of Pfizer vaccine to arrive in around October or November.”