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The Seychelles Is the New Focal Point to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Chinese-Made Vaccines

by Eric Olander
A nurse holds a box of the first dose of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine produced by Sinopharm at the Seychelles Hospital in Victoria, on January 10, 2021. Rassin VANNIER / AFP

A new wave of COVID-19 infections is sweeping across the tiny Indian Ocean island of The Seychelles. This wasn’t supposed to happen. With nearly 60% of its people vaccinated, The Seychelles has a higher inoculation rate than any other country and was widely presumed to be insulated from the outbreak that’s now ravaging countries on both sides of the Indian Ocean.

But now that infection rates have almost doubled, prompting the government to reinstitute lockdowns, there are newfound concerns that the vaccines people received are not working as expected. What’s most troubling, though, is that a third of the new infections are among those who’ve already been vaccinated — most with the Chinese-made jab from Sinopharm that was given to 57% of the entire population.

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