Ondanks het hoogste percentage gevaccineerden ter wereld is op de Seychellen deze week een grote Corona-uitbraak begonnen.

Conventionele wijsheid wil dat met een percentage van 62% volledig gevaccineerden herd immunity binnen handbereik is. Dat blijkt echter niet zo te zijn.

The situation in the Seychelles, an island nation that has suffered from a recent surge in COVID-19 cases despite boasting the world’s highest vaccination rate.(..) While most people might guess that Israel or the UK hold the title, the tiny island nation of Seychelles is actually the most vaccinated country on earth, with more than 62% of its adult population already “fully vaccinated”, according to a BBC report.

Vorige week leek er al iets sterk mis te gaan op de Seychellen, maar sindsdien is het aantal geconstateerde ziektegevallen verdubbeld. Men denkt er sterk over opnieuw een lockdown af te kondigen.

All schools in the country have been closed and sporting activities cancelled for two weeks in the country, which is spread across an archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
Measures also include a ban on inter-household interaction, some types of in-person gatherings, and the early closure of shops, bars and casinos. Non-essential workers are also being encouraged to work from home, while a 2300 local time curfew has been revived.
There are currently 1.07K active Covid cases in the Seychelles, of which a third have been detected in people given two doses of either AstraZeneca’s or China’s Sinopharm’s vaccine.

De precieze oorzaak is onbekend, maar er wordt een verband met de Zuid-Afrikaanse variant vermoed:

.. the country’s close links to South Africa means it is likely the B.1.351 variant could be behind the rise. Seychelles was added to Britain’s travel “red list” in January along with nine southern African countries and Mauritius in a bid to prevent the UK from importing the strain.

En een Hugo de Clown hebben ze op de Seychellen niet, vanaf januari is er een stevige campagne geweest die succesvol is uitgevoerd:

The country acted quickly to begin its vaccination program in January, using doses from China’s Sinopharm vaccine that were donated from the UAE. It also received doses of AstraZeneca from India. When Seychelles president Wavel Ramkalawan first announced the country’s vaccination drive, the Seychelles had recorded a total of only 531 coronavirus cases and a single death, according to data from its health ministry. But in the span of four months, that number has risen more than 10x to 6,373 with 146 total deaths. Seychelles isn’t alone: Chile, another country that has been heavily reliant on vaccines developed in China, has also seen rising cases despite its successful inoculation campaign.

De WHO gaat zich er nu uitgebreid mee bemoeien:

The vaccine failure cannot be determined without a detailed assessment, said the WHO. The hike in coronavirus cases has stoked concerns that the jabs might not be helping to suppress the island nation’s COVID-19 outbreak. A vaccine failure can’t be determined without a detailed study by the WHO, however.
(..) Presently, the health body is in direct communication with Seychelles and working on evaluating the situation, said Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO’s department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals at a briefing on May 10.

Since last week, the number of active Corona-virus cases has more than doubled to 2,486 people. Of these, 37 percent of the population have received both the vaccine doses, as per the report.

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