Prominent Thai virologist Dr. Yong Poovorawan is urging parents of children under 5 to take special care of them by protecting them from COVID-19 infection, citing the death toll among young children.

Quoting initial information from the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Yong, head of the Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology at the Faculty of Medicine of Chulalongkorn University, said in his Facebook post today (Tuesday) that there have been 51 deaths of children from COVID-19 this year, 39 of whom were under 5 and, of these, 10 were healthy children and 19 had underlying conditions.

He said that deaths of young children who are healthy is unacceptable, but often occur quite quickly. He also pointed out that, currently, there are no vaccines for available for children under five in Thailand.

Dr. Yong cited the case of China, where many children aged over three have been inoculated with Sinovac inactivated vaccine, which is quite safe, citing a report in The Lancet medical journal.

He said that, in Thailand, the decision to introduce vaccines for children under five rests with several agencies.

Although children tend to develop severe COVID-19 symptoms less frequently than adults or the elderly, Dr. Yong said that more attention should be given to the very young.

Over 56 million people in Thailand have received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccines to date, out of the entire population of some 69 million. 51 million people have received two shots, while 25.5 million have got their booster doses.

Although the daily infection rate is on the decline, death tolls remain high at more than 100 per day.