History of vaccination in Seychelles (1800s to date) |28 April 2023

Did you know that the first national immunisation programme for small pox in Seychelles dated 1808? It is indeed since early 1808 that Seychelles is part of the vaccines programme, shared Florida Bijoux, expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) specialist at the Ministry of Health.

She was speaking during the launch of Vaccination Week in a ceremony held yesterday at the Savoy Seychelles Resort & Spa. In 2023, Seychelles proudly features among 20 other countries in Africa with a robust immunisation system.

Mrs Bijoux shared that free vaccines were provided by Unicef until mid-1980. Since then the national EPI has been financed entirely by government.

Initially a total of six antigens were used, namely: polio, tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.Remarkable progress has been made over the years with the introduction of new vaccines and innovations.

Smallpox

1808: The first national immunisation programme in Seychelles was initiated when all Seychellois citizens were being encouraged to be vaccinated against small pox.  At that time only those who wished to be vaccinated did so. 

1861: A law was enacted in Seychelles, whereby it became obligatory for all babies to be immunised against small pox before the age of 4 months.  From then on, vaccination against small pox became a routine practice until 1979 when small pox was declared eradicated, worldwide.

Tetanus

1960: One case of neonatal tetanus was detected, thus decisions were taken to immunise all pregnant mothers against tetanus. 

The current national immunisation schedule ensures that all children are immunised routinely against diphtheria, pertusis and tetanus at 3, 4, 5 and 18 months.

In addition, all children aged 6 years, and adolescents aged 15 years are immunised routinely against diphtheria and tetanus.

All pregnant women from the age of 25 years receive a booster dose of tetanus toxoid, repeating the booster every 10 years.

Polio

1960: Immunisation with oral polio vaccine was initiated when Seychelles was being affected by the epidemic of poliomyelitis.

1970:OPV (oral polio vaccine) was included in the routine immunisation schedule for infants aged 3, 4, 5, 18 months, and for children and adolescents aged 6 years and 15 years.

2006:Seychelles presented the polio eradication certification documents to the African Regional Certification Committee (ARCC), and Seychelles was recognised to be at the polio eradication certification level.

2013:Following the resolution adopted during the World Health Assembly (WHA) for all countries to have completed planning for IPV (inactivated polio vaccine) introduction by end-2014, IPV introduction was implemented in all countries by end 2015. In the same year, Seychelles endorsed the document during the World Health Assembly (WHA). WHA mandated that all countries stop using OPV.

2015:One dose of IPV was introduced in the National Immunisation schedule

2016: The transition process to switch from trivalent OPV (tOPV), containing types 1, 2 and 3 of the weakened poliovirus orally, to bivalent OPV (bOPV), and containing only types 1 and 3 poliovirus was successfully done, as per the WHO guidelines.

2018: Seychelles gained another milestone towards the polio eradication initiative, with the introduction of a digital method to conduct surveillance for AFP and routine immunisation, adhere strictly by the team.

2020:  On August 25, Seychelles was declared ‘Wild-polio virus free’, by the World Health Organisation (WHO/AFRO 2020).

2024:OPV will be withdrawn completely from the National Immunisation and replaced by IPV.

Measles, mumps and rubella

1967: Outbreak of measles. A campaign was launched to immunise all children before the age of five years against measles, but it was not totally successful.

1974: Another outbreak of measles.  Decisions were taken to administer measles vaccines routinely to all 9-month-old babies. 

1984: Rubella vaccine was introduced targeting all girls in Primary 6 

1989:The combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR) was introduced for all babies at 15 months to replace the measles monovalent vaccine.

2015:Establishment of the measles serological surveillance lab.

2018:Establishment of the National Verification Committee (NVC) according to the recommendations by the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) to determine progress toward measles and rubella elimination goals.

2019:The first report of the National Verification Committee on progress towards measles elimination was presented to the Regional Verification Committee.

2023:The second NVC report will be presented to RVC in May 2023.

HIB, HPV, ROTA and PCV

2010: Vaccination against Haemophillus Influenzae type b(Hib) was introduced for infants aged 3,4,and 5 months.

2014: Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine (HPV) was introduced.

2013: Rotavirus surveillance system was set up.

2014: Rotavirus sentinel surveillance programme was established. Seychelles has since then joined the WHO/AFRO network for rotavirus surveillance.

2017: Rotavirus vaccine was introduced based on the circulating genotyping.

2018: Introduction of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV).

Hepatitis B, Yellow Fever

1985: Introduction of hepatitis B vaccine for adult.

1995: Hepatitis B and Yellow Fever was introduced for children.

2016: Due to the epidemic of Yellow Fever in Africa a campaign of Yellow Fever vaccine was organised and conducted for the general population.

Compiled by Vidya Gappy