Bangkok, Jan 24 – The health authorities of Thailand will administer the fourth dose of the vaccine against covid-19 among the inhabitants of tourist enclaves, including Bangkok, ahead of the reopening of the country in February.
The Bang Sue station, in the north of Bangkok and enabled as a massive vaccination center, will begin administering the fourth dose starting Tuesday of next week, sources from the Center on the Situation of the Covid confirmed on Monday. -19 (CCSA).
The center also specified that there is still no date set for the administration of a fourth dose among the general population in the rest of the provinces.
However, the authorities have already inoculated some 800,000 fourth doses nationwide, the majority among health personnel and the population classified as high risk, according to official figures.
Thailand, which has managed to vaccinate almost 69% of its population with the full schedule, seeks to promote booster doses among people who have received the third dose more than three months ago in tourist areas such as the capital or some coastal provinces such as Krabi, Surat Thani or Phangnga, among others.
The country, one of the few countries to allow the administration of the fourth dose along with Israel and Chile, announced that as of February 1, it will allow vaccinated travelers from any country to enter with a single night of quarantine.
The reopening comes after the suspension at the end of December of a similar program, which was applied for around a month and a half, and which had to be suddenly canceled due to concern about the advance of the omicron variant of covid-19 and a slight regrowth in the daily infected.
Since the start of the pandemic, Thailand has confirmed 2.38 million cases, including 22,045 deaths.
In 2019, before the global health crisis, almost 40 million people visited the country, where the tourism sector is one of the main engines of its economy.