Thailand decides to mix vaccines,dangerous trend-WHO

Thailand has changed its vaccine policy to mix China's Sinovac with the AstraZeneca vaccine in a bid to boost protection. The decision comes after hundreds of medical workers caught COVID despite being fully vaccinated with Sinovac. Instead of two Sinovac shots, people will now receive the AstraZeneca vaccine after their first Sinovac shot. Health workers already fully vaccinated with Sinovac will also receive a third booster dose.This can be either the AstraZeneca vaccine, or an mRNA vaccine like Pfizer/BioNTech. This third dose will be given three to four weeks after their second Sinovac jab, said the country's National Infectious Disease Committee. 
AstraZeneca is currently the only other vaccine available in the country, with Pfizer/BioNTech shots donated by the US set to arrive soon.Thailand first received Sinovac vaccines from China and began giving shots to its health workers in February.The Health Ministry said, out of more than 6,77,000 medical staff who were fully vaccinated with Sinovac, 618 were infected between April and July. One nurse died and one medical staff member is still in critical condition.Thailand is currently in the midst of a spike of new infections, reporting a record high of 9,418 on Sunday. The death toll for the previous day stood at 91, also a record number. Overall, Thailand has seen more than 3,30,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,7111 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

Meanwhile,The World Health Organization's chief scientist on Monday advised against people mixing and matching COVID-19 vaccines from different manufacturers, calling it a "dangerous trend" since there was little data available about the health impact."It's a little bit of a dangerous trend here. We are in a data-free, evidence-free zone as far as mix and match," Soumya Swaminathan told an online briefing. "It will be a chaotic situation in countries if citizens start deciding when and who will be taking a second, a third and a fourth dose." she said.