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By Panu Wongcha-um
BANGKOK, July 19 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca Plc has
told Thailand it should be able to supply around 6 million doses
of its COVID-19 vaccine per month, leaked correspondence showed,
contradicting assertions by Thai officials that the government
had been promised 10 million.
Thailand's push for 10 million monthly doses comes as it
considers imposing vaccine export curbs on Thai-manufactured
vaccine to shore up domestic supplies, a move that could create
problems for its neighbours, some of which are battling similar
or more severe coronavirus crises.
But a June 25 letter by AstraZeneca to Thailand's health
minister showed that the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker had offered to
supply just 5-6 million doses a month to Thailand from a local
plant, or one third of the amount produced by its partner Siam
Bioscience, which is owned by Thailand's king.
"I hope you will be pleased that this is nearly twice the
volume we discussed during our meeting," AstraZeneca's vice
president of global corporate affairs, Sjoerd Hubben, said in
the letter, referring to a September 2020 meeting with Thai
officials.
At that meeting, the government officials estimated Thailand
required around 3 million doses per month, Hubben wrote.
The correspondence was first reported by Isara news agency
and later seen by Reuters.
AstraZeneca also explained at the September meeting that
Thailand had an opportunity to procure more via the
international COVAX vaccine-sharing scheme, Hubben said in the
letter.
Thailand, which never made supply deals with COVAX, instead
decided in January to buy 26 million doses from AstraZeneca and
another 35 million doses in May, the letter showed.
The director-General of the Thai Disease Control Department,
Opas Karnkawinpong, confirmed on Sunday that the letter was
authentic. He told reporters the 3 million figure had been a
rough estimate and Thailand had formally asked AstraZeneca in
April 2021 to provide 10 million monthly doses.
He did not say whether AstraZeneca had agreed to that, and
said it was understood that vaccine availability depended on
output and volume might need to be agreed on a monthly basis.
AstraZeneca had no comment on Monday on the leaked letter.
The letter also detailed AstraZeneca's supply commitments of
nearly 114 million doses elsewhere in Asia - a supply chain that
has become uncertain due to potential export restrictions by the
Thai government.
It planned to supply 50 million doses to Indonesia, 30
million to Vietnam, 16.5 million to the Philippines, 10 million
to Taiwan and 6.4 million to Malaysia, the letter showed.
Opposition lawmaker Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn said Thai
authorities were prepared for neither a global supply shortage
nor the severe impact of variants of concern.
"The government was over-confident about the situation when
making these plans," he told Reuters on Monday. "They have been
very slow and careless."
Thailand has inoculated just 5.2% of its population so far.
A source with knowledge of Thailand's AstraZeneca agreement
said 61 million doses, or about a third of the local factory's
agreed output, would be delivered to Thailand overall, but no
monthly volume commitment had ever been agreed.
(Writing by Martin Petty
Editing by Mark Heinrich)
