Seychelles | Significant increase in cases despite vaccination

Nicholas Pirop
Journalism

60% of the population is vaccinated

Over 60% of the Seychelles’ estimated 100,000 population has been fully vaccinated. However, the spread of COVID-19 has spread there since the beginning of May. The archipelago in the Indian Ocean has an infection rate of more than 100 new cases per day, which is relatively higher than in India. “We are seeing an upward trend,” Public Health Commissioner Jude Gideon said this week at a news conference. We don’t know how long this will last. This will depend on the measures taken and how the new measures will be complied with. “ National containment has just been reinstated.

“Bitter taste”

At first glance, this finding “gives a bitter taste,” but the picture is more complex than it appears, notes Benoit Barbeau, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and an expert in virology. . “Vaccination protects us from severe symptoms very effectively, but it is still possible to get infected in some cases.” Mr. Barbu also notes that two-thirds of cases of infection in Seychelles affect people who have received only one dose of the vaccine, or who have not been vaccinated. “Still a good point for vaccination, it shows that vaccinated people are protected. ”

Sinopharm Vaccine

Most of the vaccine doses used in the Seychelles came from the Chinese company Sinopharm. The World Health Organization recently estimated that the Sinopharma vaccine was just over 78% effective for people under the age of 60, and they reported that they could not comment on the success of the vaccine in people under the age of 60. The AstraZeneca vaccine as well as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine have been found to be more effective, Barbu says. Of course, the quality of the vaccines played a role. Sinopharma has donated 13.3 million doses of the vaccine to 56 countries, according to the Beijing Bridge Organization.

The future of the epidemic?

It is difficult to know what the epidemic will look like in a few months or years. One possible scenario is for the virus to cause infection hotspots in people who have not been or have been vaccinated with a less effective vaccine, even in countries and territories with a lower rate. “We can envision a situation where the virus is generally under control, but where we are seeing explosions of new cases in certain specific places in the world depending on the variables. Every country will have to adapt, with restrictions on international travel. It’s possible. We are at the beginning of our knowledge of this virus.” . ”