The comments come after leaked letters showed last week that the drug maker had offered to supply five to six million vaccine doses a month to Thailand, contradicting assertions by Thai officials that the government is owed 10 million a month and 61 million doses by the end of the year.

AstraZeneca is “scouring the 20+ supply chains in our worldwide manufacturing network to find additional vaccines for Southeast Asia, including Thailand,” AstraZeneca Thailand managing director James Teague said in a statement.

“We are hopeful of importing additional doses in the months ahead,” he added.

The drug maker had previously said vaccine doses for Thailand and Southeast Asia would come from a plant of its Thai partner Siam Bioscience, owned by Thailand’s king and a first-time vaccine maker.

Pressure has been mounting on the company after Thailand said it was considering imposing limits on exports of locally manufactured AstraZeneca vaccines to shore up domestic supplies, a move that could hit its neighbours, some of which are battling similar or more severe Covid-19 crises.

Siam Bioscience has not commented on reports of production shortfalls or delivery timelines.

Teague said AstraZeneca has delivered nine million doses so far to Thailand and will deliver 2.3 million more next week.

Thailand has fully inoculated just 5.56% of its population of more than 66 million so far, while 18.62% have received at least one dose, government data shows.

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