Thailand to Issue Covid-19 Vaccine Passports to Vaccinated Patients

The Thai government has announced it will adopt a vaccine passport, a certificate of vaccination, for use with Covid-19 vaccination in Thailand. It will be an official travel document for those already vaccinated against Covid-19 and travelling to other countries.

The Royal Gazette on Tuesday published a copy of the format of the vaccine passport along with an order by the Disease Control Department authorizing a number of disease control officials to issue the vaccine passport.

Both the format of the vaccine passport and the order were approved by department director-general Dr Opas Karnkawinpong.

On the cover of the approved vaccine passport format there is Thai-English text that reads “Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand”, a garuda emblem and more text reading “Covid-19 Certificate of Vaccination”.

The name of the vaccination certificate holder and his or her passport or national identification number is typed in English certifying that the certificate holder has already been vaccinated against Covid-19.

Only vaccinations using vaccines registered in Thailand or ones certified by the World Health Organisation will be issued with the vaccine passport, while the signature of an authorised disease control official is required to validate the passport.

Six disease control officials authorised to sign vaccine passports

The covid-19 vaccination certificate is intended for an individual holder only, not for group use. Children aged under seven must have their parents’ signatures on their vaccine passports, while those who are unable to write are required to give a fingerprint on the passport instead.

Six disease control officials meanwhile are now authorised to sign a vaccine passport when it is issued.

They are Rom Buathong, a senior medical doctor with the department’s international communicable disease control checkpoints and quarantine division; Sirirak Thanasakunprasoet, a senior medical doctor with the same division; Rawinan Soma, another senior medical doctor with the same division.

Others are Ranida Techsuwanna, a senior medical doctor with the department’s general communicable diseases division; Kamonthip Atsawawaranan, a senior medical doctor with the department’s Institute of Urban Disease Control; and Parinda Watthanasi, a senior medical doctor with the department’s Institute of Preventive Medicine.

These officials are assigned to work in line with an announcement by the national communicable disease committee regarding the issuing of Covid-19 certificates, published in the Royal Gazette on March 31.

Partial Paralysis After Receiving Sinovac Vaccine

Meanwhile, Thailand’s health ministry is once again facing controversy over its use of China’s Sinovac vaccine after patients suffered adverse symptoms to the vaccine.  Seven people have suffered from partial paralysis after receiving the Sinovac vaccine, a doctor from Chulalongkorn University told CTN News.

Dr Thiravat Hemachudha, director of the Health Science Centre of Emerging Diseases at Chulalongkorn University’s faculty of medicine, posted on Facebook on Tuesday that six of them were in Rayong and one at the Queen Savang Vadhana Memorial Hospital in Chon Buri’s Sri Racha district.

Their conditions from the Sinovac vaccine improved after doctors administered medication to dissolve blood clots, Dr Thiravat posted. The hospitals had reported their conditions to the Public Health Ministry, he wrote. Their conditions might have been caused by certain lots of vaccines, not by all of the vaccines, he said.

The latest wave of Covid-19 is highly contagious with more severe cases expected in intensive care units (ICU), another doctor from Chulalongkorn Hospital said.

Source: Bangkok Post, The Royal Gazette