Covid-19 - Vaccination programme on track |21 January 2021
A Mason’s Travel staff receiving her jab yesterday at the ICCS facility (Photo: Thomas Meriton)
By Elsie Pointe
Over 11,000 first doses of the Sinopharm vaccine have been administrated in the country since the vaccination programme rolled out on January 10.
The Ministry of Health yesterday disclosed that a total of 10,976 persons had received their first jabs up to Tuesday, January 19.
With ongoing vaccinations at seven centres across the country yesterday January 20, it is clear that the figure would also surpass 11,000 persons – even 12,000 – by day’s end.
This is a staggering and positive feat for a country which aims to ambitiously vaccinate 70% of its population by mid-March.
It is unclear however how many of those already vaccinated are Seychellois and how many are residents or GOP holders.
The ICCS vaccination centre has recorded the highest number of doses administered up to January 19 with a total of 1,928, closely followed by the Yellow Roof with 1,904 and Anse Royale facility with 1,654.
Understandably, the facilities which had only recently opened their doors on Monday, Grand Anse Mahé and Beau Vallon, tabled the lowest numbers of jabs with 111 and 191 vaccinations respectively.
Ninety-four persons were meanwhile vaccinated during the launch of the programme at the Red Roof on January 10, and this included President Wavel Ramkalawan, former President Danny Faure and other key leaders in the country.
The first 10 days of the vaccination programme has targeted persons working in essential services such as health workers, political leaders, judiciary, police officers, PUC workers, military personnel and employees in the tourism industry, which was placed on the vaccination priority list as the country fully reopened its borders.
Seychelles NATION yesterday passed by the ICCS vaccination facility to see how the vaccination effort was faring on its 10th day.
The facility’s target groups yesterday were employees of Mason’s Travel, Air Seychelles, Zil Air and 7 Degrees South.
Head nurse of the ICCS facility, Juliette Albert, noted that although they had low turnouts at the start of the vaccination programme, the centre is now hitting and exceeding the national target of 200 daily jabs per vaccination centre.
“On the first two days we were not reaching our target of 200 people, but after that we have been ok. For instance, yesterday we administered 348 doses, the day before we had a lot more and we expect to meet our target again today,” said Ms Albert.
The 21-strong staff at the centre is also working to train additional health workers who will be placed in other facilities, such as the Islands Development Company (IDC) vaccination centre that is expected to open soon.
Throughout the 10 days, the centre has recorded only a few adverse effects of the vaccine including dizziness and palpitations.
In regards to the challenges, Ms Albert noted that they have encountered issues with people not respecting social distancing measures but this had been quickly sorted out.
“We have also been getting people from different sectors that have yet to be called for vaccination – carers, construction workers, self employed people. We have not been refusing them but we are urging people to stick with the schedule; there will be days allocated to them later.”
Meanwhile over at the Yellow Roof at noon, the queue had dried up and the nurses were on their lunch-break until they reopened for vaccination at 1pm.
The Yellow Roof centre had administered 125 jabs up until that point, head nurse Amelie Richmond said.
“Today’s vaccination has been a bit slow. We are supposed to vaccinate social workers, fish inspectors and staff from Eden Bleu Hotel today. We receive 200 clients and over on a daily basis, so we are expecting to reach that target but I do not think we will exceed 250 because it is a slow day,” explained Ms Richmond.
The centre has recorded only one client who had an adverse reaction to the vaccine – a female client who was sent to casualty when she started vomiting after receiving the vaccine.
