The vaccination programme against the typeA (H1N1) virus will begin on January 11 for highpriority groups, including frontline healthcare workers, pregnant women, people with obesity and other chronic disease, the disabled and the elderly.
Dr Manit Teeratantikanont, directorgeneral of the Disease Control Department, said French manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur would send samples of inactivated vaccine by the end of this month.
The Medical Science Department will run tests to determine the safety of the vaccine before registering it with the Food and Drug Administration.
The ministry is training healthcare professionals to prepare them for the vaccination programme.
About 400,000 healthcare workers, 800,000 women three months into pregnancy, 123,000 people who weigh over 100 kilograms, 130,000 patients with neurological impairment, and 600,000 patients with chronic diseases and diabetes will receive the vaccine.
Manit said the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO), which is responsible for importing the vaccine, is planning to allocate a portion of the inactivated vaccine to private hospitals for those people who have enough money to buy the vaccine, which would cost about Bt200 per dose.
The price of the vaccine at private hospitals is expected to be controlled by the GPO.
Health authorities yesterday reported two more people had succumbed to the typeA (H1N1) virus, bringing the number of fatalities to 188.
The virus killed a 32yearold man in Loei province, who had suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, and a Bangkok resident who had attended the redshirt demonstration in Nakhon Ratchasima's Khao Yai National Park in the past weeks.
The reoccurrence of the typeA flu this month has prompted the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to tighten measures to prevent the spread of the disease in the capital.
BMA deputy governor Malinee Sukavejworaki said she had been informed that about 55 per cent of 2,665 students in Bangkok had developed flulike symptoms.
In a bid to tackle the second wave of the outbreak, the BMA will implement four preventive measures: screening of patients, public relations, acting to stop its spread into educational institutions, and urging students to practise personal hygiene.
The BMA will also monitor risk groups to prevent an increase in fatalities and seek collaboration from relevant agencies to stop the outbreak spreading, she said.
Malinee added that the BMA would strictly control the screening measures in schools. Teachers and students will be trained in prevention measures against viral infection, as they were a risk group during the previous outbreak. Students with flulike illness will be told to wear face masks.
She said the BMA is now considering restoring its fasttrack unit to screen patients for typeA (H1N1) influenza.
She said the BMA would nonetheless send 10,000 health personnel, including health volunteers and Mister Flu 2009, to screen out patients with flulike symptoms who plan to attend the ceremonies to mark His Majesty the King's birthday on December 5.
About 1 million face masks are being made for distribution that day.