Seychelles reports rising cases in vaccinated and unvaccinated: Global implications for variants vs. vaccines?

On Tuesday, May 4, the Seychelles news agency reported:

“There are currently 1,068 active cases numbers, among which 84 percent are Seychellois and 16 percent are foreigners. Some 65 percent of the active cases are unvaccinated or have received only one dose, whilst the remaining have taken both doses . . . To date over 59,600 persons have received both doses of vaccines, representing 85 percent of the targeted population.”

At least two vaccines (both requiring two doses) have been used: Sinopharm (donated by the UAE) and Covishield (donated by India and also known as the AstraZeneca vaccine).

Data are not yet available from Seychelles on virus sequencing and variants in April, especially important in order to compare viruses in persons fully vaccinated (two doses) vs one dose vs. unvaccinated. Nor are data publicly available on the degree of clinical severity in these patients who have been fully or partially vaccinated.  A comparison between Sinopharm, Covishield, and unvaccinated infected persons could then be done using genetic sequencing and clinical outcome data.

In February the variant B.1.351 was confirmed in a small number of patients in Seychelles.

Earlier this year South Africa decided not to use the AstraZeneca vaccine due to a very low efficacy in preventing infection with the B.1.351 variant initially found in South Africa.

Given the widespread international use of these two vaccines there are global implication to what is happening now in the Seychelles e.g., international travel, mass gatherings events whether religious, musical, or the Olympics (Japan July, 2021 and China February, 2022). The variant B.1.351 or a novel variant must be ruled out ASAP by large-scale genetic sequencing, perhaps in the renowned laboratories in South Africa that have been performing sequencing for other nations in Africa.