The Ministry of Public Health is expected to receive the first batch of Thai-made AstraZeneca vaccine from Siam Bioscience about 3 months after an AstraZeneca representative inspected the Thai pharmaceutical factory, Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said today.

The AstraZeneca representative is satisfied with the standard of Siam Bioscience’s production facility and is confident that the first batch of the locally-produced vaccine will be available for delivery in June, he added.

Siam Bioscience has benefited from technology, transferred from AstraZeneca, to produce the vaccine for domestic use and export.

The minister said that another shipment of 800,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine from China is expected in Thailand, probably, this week, adding that another five million doses of the vaccine are being procured.

The minister pointed out that it has become easier for Thailand to procure COVID-19 vaccines because producers trust Thailand’s credit worthiness and because the first batches of vaccines have been used to inoculate frontline health officials and high-risk groups.