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Coronavirus: Thai doctors want Pfizer vaccines amid doubts over Sinovac’s efficacy against Delta variant
- Thailand’s ‘Fed-up Doctors’ group is demanding the country switch to mRNA vaccines amid reports that even medics double vaccinated with the Chinese-made jab are being infected with the Delta variant of the coronavirus
- Health care workers have been angered by a leaked memo showing experts fear giving doctors Pfizer jabs donated by the United States could undermine confidence in Sinovac
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For the past five years, Wipa, a doctor in her 20s, has had to adjust to a gruelling shift pattern of 36 hours on, eight hours off, for three to five days a week.
The long hours are necessary as she oversees the inpatient wards, outpatient services and emergency room operations of a busy public hospital in Pathum Thani province, on the edge of Bangkok, Thailand.
But in recent weeks, the shifts have felt even longer and heavier than usual. The hospital has only 20 doctors, who between them treat up to 700 patients on a daily basis. Of those, the number requiring treatment for Covid-19 is rising fast as a third wave of infections, which began in April, continues to rip through the country. The latest wave has infected more than 324,000 Thais and accounts for the vast majority of the country’s 353,712 total cases. On Tuesday alone there were 8,685 new infections. Fuelling the numbers is a surge in cases of the Delta variant, which is thought to be both more transmissible and more resistant to vaccines.
“Our focus is now on the Covid-19 patients who take most of the doctors’ time. We will run out of a few things soon: oxygen, medicines and negative pressure rooms,” said Wipa.
Like other frontline medical workers, Wipa has grown used to battling the pandemic with limited resources and does not begrudge the long hours she is putting in.
What has angered her, however, is the news that she and her fellow frontline medical workers will not be considered a priority group to receive the Pfizer vaccine when the United States donates 1.5 million doses later this month and a further 20 million ordered by the government for the fourth quarter.
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