Despite its position as the most vaccinated country in the world, the Seychelles archipelago of Covid

Despite its position as the most vaccinated country in the world, the Seychelles archipelago of 115 islands is experiencing a major resurgence in the transmission of COVID-19, raising the daily case rate to "a higher number of infections per person than India," according to the Wall Street Journal reports.

To date, nearly 67 percent of the population of Seychelles has been vaccinated - the majority of these citizens have received the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, while the rest have received Covishield, an AstraZeneca derivative manufactured in India. But according to the island nation's Ministry of Health, "more than a third of the new active cases are people who have been fully vaccinated." The authorities have not yet revealed the number of new cases among Sinopharm recipients, but "the situation is under surveillance all over the world for what it says about the effectiveness of vaccines," the magazine wrote.

On Friday, the World Health Organization authorized the Sinopharm injection for emergency global use, although there is little data on its effectiveness in patients over the age of 60. According to the journal, the mandate is expected to help "alleviate severe dose shortages in the developing world, as exports of the novel coronavirus vaccine have ceased in India."

To help limit the spread of infection, the Seychelles government recently put in place new preventive measures, such as closing bars early and banning household mixing.

The good news is that most Seychelles cases appear to be mild, said Kate O Brin, director of vaccinations, vaccines and biological preparations at the World Health Organization. She added, "The Sinopharma vaccine really requires two doses, and some cases that are reported occur either shortly after one dose or shortly after a second dose." Out of approximately 40 people who have recently been hospitalised in the county, only two are in critical Gaza Attack conditions in intensive care, Radegonde said. Other patients, who are mostly Seychellois, are stable with mild symptoms because they’ve been vaccinated, he added. "This shows that the vaccination has had its effect," Radegonde said. It comes after the archipelago saw Israil News Hot its seven-day case rate per million people skyrocket to 1,480 on Monday, 3 May – the highest in the world at the time.

Watch: COVID-19 vaccination rates around the world By Sunday, the rolling average halved to 726.34, placing the Seychelles fourth in the world for highest rate – behind Uruguay, the Maldives and Bahrain. Radegonde said the increase in tests and contact tracing has prompted the figures to fluctuate but also accounted for the recent surge in cases. However, he said the situation is still concerning, with the figures also suggesting that people are taking less care to stay safe due to the successful vaccination programme. "Seychellois because they are vaccinated now are relaxing and think that all is OK," he said. "We are letting our guard down, we are not as careful as before." Read more: All COVID restrictions on social contact to be lifted on 21 June at the earliest, Boris Johnson reveals Zero coronavirus deaths recorded in England in past 24 hours According to Oxford University’s Our World In Data website, Seychelles currently has the highest vaccine coverage in the whole world, with 129.88 per 100,000 people receiving a dose. So the outbreak in Seychelles initially caused alarm over how well the vaccines were working. According to Reuters, the World Health Organization has said it has "very low confidence" in vaccine data provided by Sinopharm – one of the two vaccines Seychelles has been administering. But the fact that most of those who have caught COVID in Seychelles have not been vaccinated suggests that low vaccine efficacy is unlikely to have contributed to the latest surge. However, the data does show that the risk of transmission remains high even in countries with high vaccination rates.