Dubai: In a disconcerting development, six fully vaccinated individuals have reportedly died of COVID-19 in Seychelles, which is one of the top vaccinated places in the world.
Five of the deceased took the made-in-India Covishield and one was given China’s Sinopharm.
India had donated one lakh doses of Covishield to Seychelles, while the UAE had donated 50,000 doses of Sinopharm.
The news of the deaths comes a day after Seychelles President Ramkalawan claimed that no fully-vaccinated individual had died from COVID-19. He further said most of of the people contracting the virus were not vaccinated. “Up to now, we haven’t had a single death of anyone who has had the two doses,” he said.
Covishield was mainly given to people over 60 in Seychelles, Jude Gedeon, the island nation’s public health commissioner said at a press conference on Thursday.
The rise in infections in this island nation has raised questions on the efficacy of vaccines against new strains of Coronavirus, particularly the delta variant.
“It looks like delta came in Seychelles in May which explains the surge at the beginning of May,” Gedeon told Bloomberg. “We presume that the majority of cases we got in May was from that variant.”
The archipelago has quickly vaccinated 98,000 people so that tourists can flow in. Tourism is the lifeline of this nation.
Now, restrictions have been reimposed on gatherings and opening times for bars and restaurants.
Earlier, the rise in cases raised eyebrows on the efficacy of Chinese vaccines.
The World Health Organization and Africa Centers for Disease Control have been working with Seychelles government to evaluate the situation.
