Thailand’s Chulabhorn Royal Academy (CRA) will inoculate 108,319 students aged 10-18 with the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine, under its “VACC 2 School” project, between today and mid-October, aiming to help children resume their normal classes in November and reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Secretary-General of the CRA, Dr. Nithi Mahanonda, said that this campaign is a research project into the use of Sinopharm to vaccinate children under 18 years old. Dr. Nithi urged related officials to approve such use of Sinopharm, so that people who have not yet been inoculated, especially in other provinces, get access to the vaccines.

The participating students will be from 132 schools, where all parents must give their consent.

In other countries, such as China, Chile, and Sri Lanka, incidents of side effects associated with the Sinopharm vaccine are very few (around 0.2%) compared to mRNA vaccines, which is the reason why the CRA decided to implement its use in children.

Many parents say they have to think carefully about getting their children vaccinated, as they have to find the safest option. Most seem to think that using inactivated virus vaccines is safer, as children have already received flu vaccines that are of a similar type.

The “VACC 2 School” campaign will not be extended because the Public Health Ministry, Education Ministry, and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration will proceed with mass inoculations for children vaccines from October, mainly with Pfizer vaccine. From then, the CRA will assess the spread of COVID-19 in schools every month.