About 80% of Thai children, aged from six months to four years, have developed a natural immunity to the COVID-19 virus, indicating that vaccinating them could be unnecessary, Dr Yong Poovorawan, head of the Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University said.
In his Facebook post yesterday, Dr Yong disclosed that the findings are from a study of 830 children in Ayutthaya, Uttaradit, Buri Ram and Trang provinces, conducted between May and August last year.
He said that children in this age group have never been inoculated against COVID-19, but tests show that they have developed anti-N antibodies and, more interestingly, they have developed immunity to the JN.1 sub variant.
He added that the virus has now mutated into the L and XEC sub variants, while the vaccine available in Thailand is for JN.1.
Dr Yong said that the study also showed that most healthy Thai children have contracted the COVID-19 virus, but with few or no symptoms developing.
The virus has evolved into a respiratory disease virus, which is easily transmissible, and most children have developed a natural immunity to it, he said.
