Thailand starts long-awaited COVID vaccination campaign | Coronavirus pandemic News

Thailand rolls out locally produced AstraZeneca jabs as it begins a much-anticipated mass inoculation campaign.

Health authorities in Thailand have kicked off a long-awaited mass vaccination campaign, with the aim of administering 6 million doses of locally-made Oxford-AstraZeneca and imported Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines this month.

The campaign’s launch on Monday came as Thailand battles its third and worst wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The government will ensure that everyone is vaccinated,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said in televised comments after he visited an inoculation centre in Bangkok.

He said vaccinations will begin in every province on Monday and that vaccines would be allocated according to the infection rate in each area.

The government plans to vaccinate 70 percent of Thailand’s population of more than 66 million people by the end of the year. So far,…