AstraZeneca today confirmed that a total of six million doses of COVID-19 vaccine will be delivered by this week to Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health (MoPH).

A total of 4.7 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine have been delivered to the MoPH to date and the remaining will be provided this week, as part of an overall commitment to deliver 61 million doses to Thailand. 

James Teague, Country President, at AstraZeneca Thailand, said: “It is hugely encouraging to see the pace of vaccinations picking up across the country, a real sign that if we work together, we can get closer to ending the pandemic. We continue to work collaboratively with the Thai government, to achieve effective vaccination coverage across the country and region as quickly as possible.” 

In parallel to continued domestic deliveries, AstraZeneca will start exporting the vaccine in early July. One third of the local supply capacity has been reserved for use in Thailand, based on the country’s order of 61 million doses, as an equitable share of the approximately 180 million doses that will ultimately be produced by Siam Bioscience. The remaining two-thirds of the Thailand supply capacity will be distributed across contracting countries in the wider Southeast Asian region. 

In October 2020, AstraZeneca, the MoPH, SCG and Siam Bioscience signed a Letter of Intent, to mark their shared commitment to broad and equitable access to the vaccine in Thailand and across the region. 

Leon Wang, Executive Vice President, International, AstraZeneca said: “A regional and global response to the pandemic is a must to truly alter its course decisively. Thailand plays an important manufacturing role in contributing to the pandemic’s end across the region, for the health and prosperity of Thailand and wider Southeast Asia.” 

AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine has had a major global impact, helping to save tens of thousands of lives since the start of this year and prevent hundreds of thousands of hospitalisations. The vaccine has been shown to be well-tolerated and highly effective against all disease severities in clinical trials, and emerging real-world evidence from tens of millions of people shows that the vaccine reduces severe disease and hospital admissions by more than 80% after the first dose. 

AstraZeneca is supplying its COVID-19 vaccine globally at no profit during the pandemic. Over 600 million doses of the vaccine have been released for supply to 168 countries worldwide.