Thailand will stop using the COVID-19 vaccine of Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech (Sinovac) (Nasdaq:SVA) when its current stock finishes, Reuters news agency reported on Monday.

A senior health official, Opas Karnkawinpong, was quoted as saying "We expect to have distributed all Sinovac doses this week," adding that the programme will switch to combining the AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) vaccine with that made by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (Nasdaq:BNTX) .

Thailand has reportedly used over 31.5 million Sinovac doses since February 2021, starting with two doses to frontline workers, high-risk groups and residents of Phuket, a holiday island.

In July 2021, Thailand started vaccinating people with Sinovac as a first dose followed by the Oxford University-developed AstraZeneca. It was the first country to combine a Chinese and Western shots, a strategy its health officials said has proved effective.

Next year, Thailand plans to buy 120 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in total and has already booked 60 million doses of AstraZeneca, a vaccine it manufactures locally.

The country added that it will only procure vaccines effective against new virus variants.