Seychelles Says Unvaccinated Have Sixfold Higher Covid Risk

(Bloomberg) -- Seychelles, which has vaccinated a greater proportion of its population against the coronavirus than any other country, said unvaccinated citizens are six times more likely to develop Covid-19 than those who have taken the inoculations.

The nation of 98,000 people has experienced a surge in infections even though 65% of the population have taken two doses of a vaccine. Most of those infected haven’t been inoculated, the health ministry said in a presentation on Thursday.

The Indian Ocean archipelago imposed restrictions, including a ban on mingling between households this month, to try reduce infections. The country has been using shots from Sinopharm and Astrazeneca Plc and said while a number of fully vaccinated people were infected, none had died.

It hasn’t disclosed which vaccines the infected people took or done sequencing to determine which strain of the virus is dominant. Seychelles hasn’t yet sent samples from infected people to Kenya for analysis as it announced last week that it planned to do last. The samples will be delivered next week.

There are currently 1,169 active cases on the islands and the case fatality rate to date has been 0.35%, lower than in many other countries, according to the ministry. Schools will be allowed to reopen next week.

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