A Thai nurse who worked with patients with coronavirus and was vaccinated with two doses of the Sinovac vaccine became infected and died from COVID-19, Professor Thiravat Hemachutha, head of the scientific and medical center for the study of new diseases at Chulalongkorn University and the Thai Red Cross, said on his Facebook page.
He published on his page a screenshot of the post of another nurse, a close relative of the deceased, who tells how it happened: the girl became infected while working with patients in the intensive care unit, she instantly developed pulmonary complications, and five days after the diagnosis, she died.
“We were aware of cases when medical workers vaccinated with two doses of Sinovac were infected with coronavirus infection from patients, but before this case, the disease was mostly mild, and none of them died from COVID-19,” Hemachutha wrote.
Hemachutha handed over to the Ministry of Health at the end of last week the results of his study conducted jointly with colleagues from the National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, which proves the insufficiency of immunization with the Sinovac vaccine in case of infection with the delta strain of coronavirus. The study suggests immunizing first-tier medical workers who are fully vaccinated with Sinovac with a third, “booster” dose of another vaccine – AstraZeneca or Pfizer’s mNRC vaccine. Experiments conducted by scientists on volunteers revealed that a “booster” injection of AstraZeneca after two doses of Sinovac creates sufficient immunity in the body against both the alpha strain and the delta strain of coronavirus.
On Sunday, at a media briefing at the Ministry of Health in Bangkok, a representative of the Ministry of Health, Sophon Iamsirithavon, told reporters that 618 medical workers out of more than 670 thousand who were fully vaccinated with Sinovac fell ill with a coronavirus infection during the period of the vaccine.
Iamsirithavon also said that the ministry is considering the proposal of a group of researchers, including Dr. Hemachutha, to immunize health workers from the group vaccinated with Sinovac with another dose of AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine as a “booster.”
On Saturday, at a media briefing, the official representative of the government Center for Control and Combating the Spread of COVID-19, Thavisin Visanuyothin, told reporters that in near future Thailand will receive 1.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccine as a gift from the United States and that part of this vaccine can be used for additional “booster” immunization of workers of the first echelon of the fight against coronavirus infection and people suffering from chronic diseases, the exacerbation of which is caused by coronavirus infection.
