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Sinopharm and AstraZeneca Plc, the largest country in the East African island state in the Indian Ocean, offer a population of 98,000, licensed in India and known as Covishield. The Health Department reported that at least two people vaccinated with both doses of Covishield had recently died from coronavirus.
A study conducted in South Africa in February showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine has a limited effect in protecting people from the mild form of COVID-19. No findings have been made regarding severe disease status and deaths.
“The test sequence has been dominated by the worrying beta strain since February 2021,” the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
The palm-fringed archipelago of the Indian Ocean was in a hurry to vaccinate its population to open up to tourists, who are the source of the country’s economic vitality. Now he had to renew restrictions on activity and movement. Foreign Minister and Tourism Minister Sylvestre Radegonde said Wednesday that the “suitability” of the vaccines used should be evaluated.
On May 11, the Health Ministry reported that the number of active cases more than doubled in one week, to more than 2,400, and to 37 percent. these patients were vaccinated with both doses of the vaccine.
Although the outbreak has subsided a bit since then, on June 23. According to the data, 1,426 active cases were recorded, and the numbers still remain stably high.
The country’s health authorities sent samples collected before May 24 to the Kenya Medical Research Institute for sequencing. The so-called alpha and delta strains, first detected in the UK and India, respectively, have also been identified.
President Wavel Ramkalawan has expressed his confidence in the Sinopharm vaccine. “Sinopharm is working very well because so far we have no coronavirus victims since the vaccine was released,” the president said in an interview on Wednesday.
Too early
Seychelles health authorities say that unvaccinated people are six times more likely to be infected with COVID-19. About 70 percent. populations have already been vaccinated in two doses.
However, public health commissioner Jude Gedeon says it is too early to draw conclusions about which vaccines work best.
“We cannot compare the two vaccines because Sinopharm was administered primarily to people under the age of 60 and Covishield to people over the age of 60,” the commissioner said in an interview. – We are currently investigating demographically how vaccines have affected both age groups. We have no casualties with Sinopharm at this time. “
What is happening in the Seychelles is very different from what is happening in Israel, the second most vaccinated country in the world, where coronavirus cases have fallen dramatically (although there has been a recent increase in the delta variety).
This contrast can provide important information on the efficacy of different coronavirus vaccines.
The vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech is the most widely used in Israel.
It is worth noting that mRNA-based vaccines were first introduced during this pandemic (the second is Modern). Clinical trial data to date suggest that these vaccines are more effective at inhibiting the spread of coronavirus, are more effective against virus strains, and prevent the spread of the virus in the community.
The Sinopharm and Covishield vaccines, on the other hand, rely more on traditional methods and have been shown to be less effective.
So far, it is clear that although there has been an increase in infections in Seychelles, there are very few cases of people developing a very severe form of the disease. “We have few people in intensive care units. Two out of forty (hospitalized) – during an interview on May 10. Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan said.” Vaccines protect people from severe symptoms.
The situation in Seychelles also shows us once again that our understanding of public immunity, the theoretical limit at which the virus can no longer spread, continues to change. Researchers have previously considered that 55 to 82 percent of coronaviruses must be vaccinated or relieved to achieve such immunity. population.
However, 17 months after the start of the pandemic, it is now thought that this threshold may depend on the susceptibility of a particular population to certain strains, physical distance from people, the use of masks and other infection prevention measures. as well as the time of year. Like the epidemic, the situation tends to get worse when people spend more time indoors due to extremely cold or hot weather.
“It is unlikely that we will reduce the spread of the virus to zero or eradicate it completely,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Health Security Center in Baltimore. “Vaccines do what matters most to us now: they prevent serious diseases.”
Lessons from the Seychelles can be valuable to other countries when deciding which vaccines to buy.
“The most important thing is the quality and efficacy of vaccines against the spread in your country,” said Glenda Gray, president of the Medical Research Council of the Republic of South Africa, who was one of Johnson & Johnson’s in-country trials. of the vaccine.
Seychelles Finance Minister Naadir Hassan, who was supposed to control 13 percent last year. Seychelles’ shrinking economy says the government cannot afford to sit around and wait for answers to existing puzzles related to coronavir. According to him, the country is an “open and vulnerable economy.” “The country must be safe, the country must be open,” he said.
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