Thailand develops robotic system to squeeze out more AstraZeneca vaccine doses

Using a robotic arm, the “AutoVacc” system can draw 12 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in four minutes from a vial

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As Thailand struggles with its worst coronavirus outbreak yet, researchers in the country have developed a machine to draw out Covid-19 vaccine doses more efficiently and optimise lower-than-expected supplies.

Using a robotic arm, the “AutoVacc” system can draw 12 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in four minutes from a vial, according to researchers at Chulalongkorn University, who made the machine that has been used at the university’s vaccination centre since Monday.

That is up 20% from the standard 10 doses drawn manually, they said. The machine only works on AstraZeneca multi-dose vials currently and labels show each vial can provide 10 to 11 doses.

“The machine guarantees with accuracy that we can gain an extra 20% from each vaccine vial – from 10 to 12 doses,” said Juthamas Ratanavaraporn, the lead researcher of the team at the university’s Biomedical Engineering Research Center.  “The extra 20% that we get means that if we have AstraZeneca for 1 million people, this machine can increase the number of doses to 1.2 million people,” said Juthamas. Reuters