Ten new COVID-19 cases in state quarantine, including seven Thai returnees from abroad, were recorded in Thailand today, according to the CCSA.

The seven Thai infections include two men and one woman returning from Hong Kong, three hotel employees arriving from the United States and a Thai returning from Kuwait.

All of them entered state quarantine in Chon Buri, Samut Prakan and Bangkok, where they underwent tests which returned positive results for COVID-19.

The three other new infections are two Russians, a 51-year old office worker and a 42-year old businesswoman, and a 61-year old Kuwaiti man.

Cumulative infections in Thailand, to date, are 3,600, including 2,445 locally transmitted cases and 662 imported cases. 3,390 infected people have recovered and 151 others are still being treated in hospital. The death toll remains 59.

Meanwhile, Dr. Pannipa Yongtrakul, spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Health, said yesterday that the National Vaccines Committee has approved the procurement of anti-coronavirus vaccines from different sources in advance, to ensure that Thai people will have access to them once they are available.

She said that the National Vaccines Institute has been assigned as the lead organization, to enter into bilateral cooperation agreements with vaccine producers, such as the COVAX facility, for joint development or acquisition of potential COVID-19 vaccines.

She said that the Ministry has been allocated one billion baht for vaccine acquisition.

The budget is divided into three portions. 365 million baht is for the development of an mRNA vaccine by the Faculty of Medicines of Chulalongkorn University, 600 million baht is for increased production capacity for the Viral Vestor vaccine, by Siam Bio Science Company, and the remainder is for the National Primate Research Centre of Chulalongkorn University.