The island nation of Seychelles, among those with the highest vaccination rates in the world, has recorded just 71 deaths from COVID-19 so far. Though a low number overall, of concern is the fact that six of these were of fully-vaccinated people—though they also had underlying health conditions.
The country's administration announced that six out of the 71 deaths seen so far were of fully vaccinated individuals, with five of them having received Covishield (the version of the AstraZeneca vaccine made in India) and Sinopharm (one of the six vaccines approved in China).
While concerns about Seychelles’ vaccination programme had earlier centred around the surge in cases, many Western media outlets had questioned the efficacy of Chinese vaccines. However, as an Observer Research Foundation report from June 28 had noted, no deaths had occurred among those who were fully vaccinated at the time. That statistic seems to have since changed.
While India had donated 100,000 doses of Covishield, 50,000 doses of Sinopharm were donated by the UAE. Amongst the vaccinated population that has had two doses, 57 per cent were given Sinopharm, while 43 per cent had been given Covishield, as of June 28, the ORF report said.
While vaccine trials for AstraZeneca and many of the other leading vaccines had touted varying efficacy rates at preventing symptomatic illness, all of them reported near 100 per cent efficacy figures in terms of preventing death due to COVID-19.
The rise of new variants like the highly infectious Delta variant, which is expected to become the dominant variant around the world, has been known to be challenging the efficacy of vaccines in terms of their ability to prevent symptomatic illness or infection. Now, fears that their protection itself may also be affected.
However, the mortality rate in Seychelles remains low, at 0.4 per cent, which the country’s Public Health Commissioner said could be due to the high rate of vaccination in the country as well as the spread of several variants.
India’s expert advisory panel, NITI Aayog, on Friday shared details of a study that evaluated the efficacy of receiving two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. The study found that two doses provided around 98 per cent protection from death due to the disease, while one dose gives nearly 92 per cent shield. The study had been conducted on police personnel in Punjab and was done by the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh in collaboration with the Punjab government.
Sharing the data of the study, NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul said 4,868 police personnel were not vaccinated and out of them, 15 died due to coronavirus infection, which comes down to 3.08 incidence per thousand.
Then out of 35,856 police personnel who were administered one dose, nine died, which translates to 0.25 per thousand. A total of 42,720 received both doses of the vaccine and out of them two died, which translates to 0.05 incidence per thousand, he said at a press conference.
"Police personnel fall in high-risk group. From these numbers, we find that one dose offers 92 per cent protection from death while both doses give 98 per cent protection," Paul said.
"Such studies and their findings show that vaccination eliminates serious disease and deaths. So have faith in the vaccines as they are effective and vaccines should be embraced," he said.
With inputs from PTI
