Thailand develops robotic system to squeeze out more vaccine doses
By Team Newsable | First Published Aug 25, 2021, 3:36 PM ISTThe "AutoVacc" device, which uses a robotic arm, can pull 12 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from a vial in four minutes, according to Chulalongkorn University researchers who created the equipment, which has been utilised at the university's vaccination centre since Monday.
As Thailand battles its biggest coronavirus epidemic to date, experts in the nation have devised a machine to pull out Covid-19 vaccine doses and optimise lower-than-expected supply more effectively.
The "AutoVacc" device, which uses a robotic arm, can pull 12 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from a vial in four minutes, according to Chulalongkorn University researchers who created the equipment, which has been utilised at the university's vaccination centre since Monday.
This is a 20% increase above the standard ten dosages drawn manually, researchers claim. The machine presently only works with AstraZeneca multi-dose vials, and the labels indicate that each vial may give 10 to 11 doses.
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According to Juthamas Ratanavaraporn, the team's main researcher at the university's Biomedical Engineering Research Center, the machine ensures an extra 20% from each vaccination vial - from 10 to 12 doses. The researcher went on to say that the extra 20% implies that if we have AstraZeneca for 1 million people, this machine can increase dosages to 1.2 million individuals.
She stated that while some health professionals utilising low dead space syringes (LDSS) to decrease waste can draw up to 12 doses per vial, it takes a lot of labour and experience. She went on to say that this might sap a lot of the vitality of the health staff. They would have to do this on a daily basis for many months.
According to Juthamas, the prototype machine costs 2.5 million baht ($76,243), including additional supplies such as syringes, and that while they were open to export prospects, that was something for the future. She also stated that they want to build comparable devices for use with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
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Thailand had mostly kept Covid-19 under control for the majority of the epidemic, but more virulent strains like Delta have seen cases and fatalities skyrocketing since April, putting pressure on officials to speed up vaccines.
So far, approximately 9% of Thailand's population of more over 66 million people has been fully vaccinated, with the deployment hampered by lower-than-anticipated vaccine supplies.
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