#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40016266

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The Public Health Ministry is distributing Covid-19 vaccines to subdistrict health promoting hospitals nationwide to ensure that local people can get a jab at vaccination units closest to their homes.


The ministry’s head inspector, Dr Suthep Phetmark, said on Friday the move will help promote comprehensive vaccination at community level to prepare for the redesignation of Covid-19 as an endemic in the future.

“The plan has been implemented for about a month after our surveys found that one of the reasons people are still not vaccinated is because the vaccination unit is too far away, or that they have no one to take them there,” he said. “The vaccines provided to subdistrict health promoting hospitals include Sinovac, Astra Zeneca and Pfizer that are still usable. The ministry is not dumping expired vaccines on subdistrict hospitals as some have speculated.”

Suthep was referring to a Facebook post by the Rural Doctors Society on Thursday, which said that “subdistrict health promoting hospitals are not garbage dumpster for CCSA’s leftover vaccines”. He added that most of these hospitals have no cold storage large enough for high volume of vaccine, whereas the number of people interested in getting a jab now is also low, which means these vaccines will most likely become unused and eventually expire.

“The ministry has been working with subdistrict hospitals to survey people who are still unvaccinated in each province, in order to give a jab at home for those who are unable to travel to the hospital,” said Suthep. “The ministry will provide the vaccine while the National Health Security Office will support vaccination fee for public health officials/volunteers at 40 baht per jab.”

“Giving Covid-19 vaccines to these hospitals is not a ploy to eliminate leftover vaccines. Furthermore, these hospitals are capable of storing the vaccines as they must have storage for other types of vaccines such as diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus,” he added.

“The ministry hopes that the plan will help people in remote areas get vaccinated with full doses to reduce the risk of severe symptoms or deaths now that Covid-19 is becoming an endemic, meaning more disease control measures will be relaxed.”

So far, Thailand has given 138 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine: 81.6 per cent of the population have received the first jabs and 75.7 per cent have got their second jab. Only 40.7 per cent of people in Thailand have taken booster shots.

Published : June 03, 2022

By : THE NATION