EXCLUSIVE Thailand’s seniors lag behind in COVID vaccine, according to data

BANGKOK, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Just two weeks before her long-awaited vaccination appointment in Bangkok, 62-year-old mother of Anyamanee Puttaraksa became feverish. Three days later, her mother tested positive for COVID-19. Four hours later, he died.

Alongside Anyamanee’s pain, there is anger over a deployment of vaccines that has left seniors among the least vaccinated groups in Thailand, a contrast to much of the rest of the world, where vulnerable seniors have been a priority.

“If she had been vaccinated, her symptoms would not have been so severe,” Anyamanee said.

Government data first analyzed by Reuters show that Thailand has completely vaccinated 6.7% of an estimated 10.9 million people aged 60 and over, compared to 15% of adults aged 18 to 59 and 10.2% of the total population, including children who are not being vaccinated.

Thailand was the only one of the 30 countries in which Reuters reviewed data that had a lower percentage of older people vaccinated than those of younger age groups.

Neighboring Malaysia had completely vaccinated at least 82% of the elderly on August 22, according to government data, compared to 45.6% of its total population so far. In Indonesia, only 17% of the elderly have been completely vaccinated, but it is still over 13% of the total population.

Chawetsan Namwat, a senior official in the Department of Disease Control at the Ministry of Public Health, said plans to prioritize the elderly changed after a major outbreak in Bangkok and added that the relatively low vaccination rate in this group age could have caused more deaths among older citizens.

Since April, people aged 60 and over accounted for at least 62% of deaths in Thailand and about 8.7% of cases. The proportion of elderly deaths has increased, pointing to the possible impact of slow vaccines.

In Indonesia, the elderly account for almost 12% of cases, but only 47% of deaths.

Critics of Thailand’s vaccination policy blame it in part for a rise in more than 10,000 deaths in a country where fewer than 100 people died of COVID-19 last year.

“The higher death toll now is the direct result of the failure to prioritize the elderly before,” said Chris Potranandana, co-founder of Zendai, a group of volunteers that helps the elderly and poor access the trials and to the treatment of COVID.

Chawetsan said the highest number of deaths in the current outbreak corresponded to a higher number of cases and that mortality rates were only slightly higher in that outbreak.

Since April, the Thai case mortality rate (the ratio of confirmed deaths to confirmed cases) has almost tripled to 0.96%, from the average of the first two outbreaks of 0.33%, according to data analyzed by Reuters. The rate for the elderly is 7.2%, compared to the previous 4%.

CHANGE PRIORITIES

Although the government initially announced that the elderly would be a priority group for vaccinations, planning shifted from an age-based to a geographic-based priority system following an outbreak in Bangkok in the United States. ‘April.

But younger and working-age groups in the capital were able to access vaccination centers more easily than the elderly, which resulted in lower inoculation rates for the elderly, Chawetsan said.

“We were going to prioritize the elderly, but we didn’t anticipate the massive wave of Delta variant infections,” Chawetsan said. “When this happened, we had to pool our supply for the risk area with high infection rates and vaccinate all age groups there to curb infections.”

Bangkok received a third of Thailand’s vaccine supply when the country’s mass launch began in June, despite having only a tenth of the population, according to official data analyzed by Reuters.

Another piece of vaccine went to the tourist island of Phuket, where a government plan to vaccinate all adults has allowed it to resume limited international tourism.

A chaotic start in the deployment of the vaccine could also have hindered the elderly, Potranandana said. Vaccination reservations were invited to a large number of mobile apps and websites and were sometimes canceled in the short term or established in the future due to the shortage of vaccines.

“Access was not geared towards the elderly, which is the least tech-savvy group,” he said.

Chawetsan said early registration numbers were also low due to vaccine hesitation among the elderly.

The government says it now aims to step up vaccinations for the elderly. Chawetsan said 70% or more of the elderly should have received the first doses by the end of September.

A concerted vaccination boost in Bangkok now means that 97% of the elderly have had at least one dose, more than 90% for the total population of the city, with 7% of the elderly vaccinated.

Many families complain that it came too late.

“They should have vaccinated the elderly right after the health and front-line workers,” said Thippawan Rodinthra, 18, her 78-year-old grandfather died of COVID-19 last month.

“Between mourning and anger, I am more angry with the government.”

Reports of Patpicha Tanakasempipat in Bangkok; Additional reports from Liz Lee in Kuala Lumpur, Stanley Widianto in Jakarta and Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Edited by Kay Johnson, Matthew Tostevin and Gerry Doyle

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