About 25 million Southeast Asians have been vaccinated against Covid-19, much less than the US with 140 million people, or the UK, 40 million people.
Covid-19 vaccination in Southeast Asia started at the end of 2020 with the first country to deploy it being Singapore.
Thailand hopes to vaccinate about 50% of the population by the end of this year.
Thailand said it would not buy vaccines through the Covax program because the conditions were too strict.
In the first quarter of this year, the country received 2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine and 61 million doses of AstraZeneca.
Not wanting to rely entirely on foreign supplies, Thailand developed its own domestic vaccine.
To date, 1.4 million people (2.27% of the population) in Thailand have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
Bangkok residents will be vaccinated against Covid-19 in March 2021.
Indonesia aims to vaccinate 181 million people, or two-thirds of the population, by March 2022.
Indonesia buys vaccines from the West and China: ordering 125.5 million doses of Sinovac, 50 million doses from AstraZeneca and 50 million doses of vaccine prepared with nCoV protein from Novavax.
The country is developing a domestic vaccine called Merah Putih (white and red, the two colors on the national flag).
12 million people, equivalent to 5% of the population, have received at least one vaccine shot.
Malaysia spent $504 million to buy vaccines for 26.5 million people, about 80% of the population, starting vaccination in February. Science Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the government aims to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
Through the Covax mechanism, Malaysia has 12.8 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, enough to vaccinate 20% of the population.
Malaysia also bought 12 million vaccine doses from Sinovac, 3.5 million vaccine doses from China’s CanSino and 6.4 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V.
The country does not develop its own vaccine, but is the third-phase testing site of a vaccine prepared by the Institute of Medical Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
To date, 1.4 million Malaysians (more than 4% of the population) have been vaccinated, of which more than 800,000 have received two full doses.
A medical worker in Manila, Philippines was vaccinated with Covid-19 vaccine, January 2021.
The Philippines ordered 30 million doses of Covovax vaccine from the Serum Institute of India and 17 million doses from AstraZeneca.
The Philippines plans to buy a total of 148 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to vaccinate 70 million people this year, or half of the population.
On May 11, the country received the first 200,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine out of nearly 2 million doses agreed with the Covax mechanism.
Singapore is vaccinated with vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer and Sinovac.
The government prioritizes healthcare workers, the elderly and people working in environments with high risk of infection.
Singapore received the first batch of Pfizer vaccine in December last year.
Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School also cooperated with biotechnology company Arcturus Therapeutics to develop a domestic vaccine called ARCT-021, based on mRNA technology.
Singapore leads Southeast Asia with more than 20% of the population having received two doses of the vaccine.
Myanmar started vaccinating nearly 55 million people in January 2021.
Myanmar has ordered 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India, enough to vaccinate 15 million people.
Myanmar has vaccinated at least one dose of vaccine for more than 3% of the population, equivalent to 1.6 million people.