Accelerated Covid-19 vaccination campaign rolling out on Sunday By Laura Pillay |08 January 2021
The press conference yesterday: (l to r) Dr Sanjeev, Ms Cecile, Minister Vidot, Dr Louange and Dr Gedeon (Photo: Thomas Meriton)
As the Covid-19 situation in the country worsens, the Ministry of Health is as from this weekend rolling out the Covid-19 vaccination campaign, commencing with healthcare workers and other priority groups including political leaders and health care leaders.
Speaking at the Covid-19 press update yesterday afternoon, Minister for Health Peggy Vidot highlighted the urgency in rolling out the vaccination campaign at the soonest possible, as a strategy to break the chain of transmission and stop the propagation of the infection, considering the increasing number of community transmission cases detected over the past 10 days.
“As a strategy, we have decided to accelerate all our efforts to introduce a vaccination programme against Covid-19. We have put in place the necessary structures, we have ensured that we have sufficient vaccines, we have conducted the necessary training with our staff, and we feel that this is the time to start the vaccination campaign. Therefore we are ready, so if everything goes to plan, it is to start this coming Sunday,” Minister Vidot stated.
According to deputy chief executive of the Health Care Agency (HCA) and chairperson of the National Immunisation Technical Advisory Committee Kathleen Cecile, healthcare workers employed within hospitals, at community level and at private clinics are first in line for the vaccines followed by essential services workers. Patients with chronic health ailments constitute the third priority group, to be followed by the elderly population and then the general population, aged 18 to 65.
“Our target is for us to vaccinate 70 percent of the population, which is around 69,000 persons. There will be five vaccination teams, and we expect that we can vaccinate 1,000 persons, if they turn up daily, and we expect this to take us four months,” Ms Cecile explained.
The campaign is set to commence at the Seychelles Hospital campus on Sunday December 10, for political and healthcare leaders, marking the start of the campaign which is expected to last three to four months. A medical team will also depart for Praslin on Sunday to make the necessary preparations for the first doses of the SINOPHARM vaccine to be administered on the island on Monday December 11, before moving on to La Digue.
Monday January 11, will see the establishment of vaccination centres at ICCS, Victoria, and a second centre at Anse Royale, with two additional centres added to the list the following week, Monday January 18.
“In the following week, we will open two other vaccination centres on Mahé, Beau Vallon and we are considering Anse Boileau or Grand Anse, we are assessing which would be best-suited as we need space for the different vaccination phases; pre-screening, counselling, registration, vaccination and we will then keep them for 30 minutes under observation, to see if they develop any serious adverse events. On the same day, people will be given their vaccination cards, which are being prepared as we speak, and on that day, they will also receive a small card with an appointment for their second dose. We will follow registration through an electronic database so we will know on a daily basis who has been vaccinated, how many and where,” Ms Cecile added.
The first vaccines to be rolled-out are the SINOPHARM vaccines, although other brands are expected to soon arrive in the country. It must be noted that the first consignment of 50,000 SINOPHARM vaccines arrived in the country on December 22, although only 25,000 citizens will benefit from the vaccine, which has to be administered in two doses, 28-days apart.
“I would like to note that the vaccination programme is not mandatory. People are free to choose but we encourage everyone who can take the vaccine, as we see the vaccine as one of the tools that will be most helpful to stop the pandemic,” urged Minister Vidot.
Similarly, Public Health Commissioner Jude Gedeon is calling for citizens to come forward and opt for the jabs, as a means to curb the propagation of the virus, and return to some sense of normalcy. For those who are sceptical, Dr Gedeon took some time to explain that when vaccines are administered, the person is given a small amount of a harmless form of a disease, resulting in the body making antibodies to fight off the disease. If the person encounters the disease again, the body already has the antibodies to fight it; the person is therefore immune.
“If only a few people are vaccinated, the disease will spread faster if one person is infected. If however lots of people are vaccinated, the disease cannot spread very far, so the community stays safe. This is known as herd immunity,” he said.
“It is important that people come forward to take the vaccine and are not scared to do so. We will be among the first people to take it, because we are convinced that it is the most essential tool to control the chain of transmission in Seychelles, in addition to other measures that we are observing,” Dr Gedeon asserted.
For the present moment, persons under the age of 18 will not have access to the vaccines, as there is limited research which indicates that they are safe for use by children, and on account that children don’t have as high a risk of dying from Covid-19.
Also present during the press conference were chief executive of the Health Care Agency Dr Danny Louange and Dr Sanjeev Pugazhendhi.