The Department of Medical Services (DMS) is conducting research to determine how many vaccine shots are needed to effectively fight off XBC Deltacron, a hybrid of the Delta and Omicron BA.2 variants.
Dr Supakit Sirilak, DMS director-general, said the strain is being cultivated in a lab so it can be used to test the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines. The study is expected to take a while to complete.
"If we can't cultivate it, we'll need samples from patients," he said. "The next step is to test the effectiveness of [vaccines]."
"We'll conduct tests to find out how many shots [are needed to] fight the infection and we will report the findings," he said.
Dr Supakit also said the Deltacron strain is not officially considered a new variant, noting it is a hybrid of the Delta and Omicron BA.2 variants.
Dubbed "Deltacron", the hybrid was first detected in several European countries in February. However, the first patient diagnosed with the XBC Deltacron strain in Thailand was recently discovered.
According to the department, a 47-year-old female patient has fully recovered since samples were collected in October. She did not experience severe symptoms, it said.
Dr Supakit said the department is still monitoring coronavirus variants and results are reported on a weekly basis. It remains to be seen if the next report scheduled to be released next week will show Deltacron cases.
Meanwhile, Tharet Krassanairawiwong, director-general of the Department of Disease Control (DDC), yesterday said the country's first case of XBC Deltacron received three shots of the vaccine before the patient was infected.
The patient received two AstraZeneca shots last year and a Pfizer booster in February, according to Dr Tharet.
The DDC chief stressed that vulnerable people, known as the "608" group, which includes senior citizens and those who have chronic conditions, should receive at least four vaccine shots to prevent severe symptoms and death.
He said members of this group should get boosted as soon as possible if their last shot was received four to six months ago.
He said the number of Covid-19 cases is expected to rise and the department is keeping a close watch on community infections.
From Nov 19–25, single-nucleotide polymorphism tests on 299 people showed that the Omicron BA.2.75 subvariant accounted for 63.3% of cases, up from 42.9% one week earlier.
Most cases of infections were locally spread.
