The Department of Medical Sciences recommends the intradermal injection of COVID-19 vaccines to increase the number of vaccine recipients with available doses but the practice requires skilled health workers.
Dr. Supakit Sirilak, director-general of the department, said that with conventional muscular injection, one COVID-19 vaccine dose could be administered for only one person but with intradermal injection, the same one dose could be used for as many as five people.
Intradermal and muscular injections with the AstraZeneca vaccine as the third dose proved to be equally effective when it came to antibody responses, he said.
Intradermal injection had not become a policy. It depended on the readiness and skills of local health workers. This technique would be tried first in Phuket, Dr. Supakit said. (TNA)