Health System Research Institute and World Health Organization join hands with the Ministry of Public Health and Thai Health Foundation offers policy research to systematically address the policy and implementation gaps, hoping to enhance disease control mechanism, reduce treatment costs and achieve the goal “Vaccine for All” in Thailand.
Dr Daniel Kertesz, WHO Representative to Thailand, mentioned that Thailand commitment for Universal Health Coverage including immunization for all is an important policy commitment that is aligned with the global commitment on health. Vaccine is one of the most cost- effective public health tools for disease prevention and control if coverage could be maintained at optimal level to create herd immunity. In most of the vaccines, 90% coverage is required. But for measles- a highly contagious disease, 95% coverage should be secured.
Thailand has provided 10 vaccine antigens in its expanded programme for immunization. The latest vaccination coverage survey carried out in 2018 suggested that vaccine coverage in Thai children is optimal or more than 90% coverage, except for MMR2 – to be given to children at age 2.5 years old- the survey revealed that the coverage is still suboptimal at 86% only. Under the Thailand’s context, apart from the children living in the 3 southern most provinces, the hard to-reach for immunization groups are children and adults who are non-Thais including people without nationality and migrants from neighboring countries due to lack of health security. In this regard, World Health Organization (WHO) has joined hand with Health System Research Institute (HSRI), the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) and Thai Health Promotion Foundation(ThaiHealth), through the Migrant Health Programme which is one of the six priority programmes of the Royal Thai Government-World Health Organization, to support conducting a research “Review Immunization Service System for Migrant Populations in Thailand”. The research is aimed to systematically identify the gaps and synthesis information derived from key stakeholders in order to offer policy options for Thailand. The research is framed to review the situation of vaccine preventable diseases especially on measles and rubella and public health impact at the border areas, Immunization service system for migrant populations and factors affecting immunization policy and implementation targeting migrant populations, health (vaccine) financing mechanism etc. WHO hopes that the policy options generated from the research will help support Thailand to achieve the goal of “Health for All” including “Vaccine for All”, which will ultimately result to the health security in Thailand and the region.
Dr Nopporn Cheunklin, Health Research System Institute(HSRI), Director, mentioned that migrant populations are among one of the vulnerable groups in Thailand. HSRI has long been supported and processed various research dimensions to support appropriate health equity policy to improve their quality of life. Migrant populations do not only contribute to Thailand workforce, their spending for their living including paying VAT for consumable and non-consumable goods in Thailand has contributed to Thailand’s economic as well. If 4 million migrants spend 50-baht person a day, it is estimated that there will be 5,000 million bath flows to national budget which is a great deal. As such providing basic or essential health services including immunization should include migrants as the target populations as well. This will help prevent vaccine preventable disease and reduce occurrence of disease outbreak which will have impact on health and economy of the country. I believe that the recommendations for sustainable financing options from this research will support policy movement on immunization for migrant populations in Thailand.
Story credit: Health System Research Institute