Individuals may not be offered the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine to be imported by the Chulabhorn Royal Academy next month as the vaccine is aimed at organisations, to be sold at cost.
Secretary-general Nithi Mahanonda wrote on Facebook that the academy would not make any profit from the deal and would sell the vaccine only to private and public organisations.
"I apologise if I might have talked too fast during the press conference, causing a misunderstanding that we'll profit from the vaccine," he wrote on his page.
The academy would sell the vaccine at cost to public and private organisations with clear name lists of recipients.
"We won't charge an extra baht," Dr Nithi wrote.
The price of the vaccine will not exceed 1,000 baht per shot, including insurance, Dr Nithi said on Friday.
Buyers must also accept the condition that they cannot sell the shots to a third party.
"However, you may hire a medical facility and any deal will be at the discretion of both parties."
As a result, people belonging to those organisations would be vaccinated for free.
The purpose is to relieve the government's burden in terms of budget and workload.
"Individuals may not be able to get this alternative vaccine," Dr Nithi wrote.
"In any case, we sincerely hope your place in the queue to get state-provided vaccines will come soon."
For companies, the academy also requires that they buy an additional 10% of what they intend to buy.
The extra shots will be donated to the government so that less-privileged people who do not belong to any organisation can be vaccinated, he said.
An announcement in the Royal Gazette last week gave the Chulabhorn Royal Academy the authority to procure Covid vaccines within the country and from abroad as needed, "for the benefit of public health".
The announcement took the government by surprise at a time when its chaotic vaccine programme was facing mounting criticism.