There is officially no case of Omicron circulating in Mauritius. The samples sent to Central Laboratory Services for sequencing should be completed by next week. This will then tell us more about its virulence and resistance to vaccines. Nevertheless, it is difficult to be reassured despite a slight decrease of three deaths for the week of 26 November to 03 December as compared to 122 deaths registered last week.
Deaths’ toll down by 3 cases
“119 deaths directly attributed to Covid 19 for this week,” announced the health minister, Dr. Kailesh Jagutpal at the National Communications Comittee conference. He was accompanied by Dr. Janaki Sonoo, the Acting Director of the Central Health Lab at Candos. Of the count, 71 patients were unvaccinated. 28 were under 60 years. The majority of the cases, namely 112 cases, had various co-morbidities. In terms of deaths, “the country has recorded 574 cases since March 2021,” said Dr Jagutpal. With regards to the 25-year-old woman, who died on Thursday, December 2, at the SSRN hospital on the same day after being administered her Booster Dose, the Minister said that investigations are still ongoing and that out of respect for the deceased, he would not reveal much about her case. However, he did say that the young woman was a previous ‘heart patient who had already had heart surgery’.
875 positive cases identified by PCR tests
In one week, according to PCR tests, there have been 875 positive cases, including 28 imported cases. In the last 24 hours, 108 new positive cases of Covid-19 have been recorded. There were 2 admissions to ENT Hospital and 38 admissions to the Covid Wards of regional hospitals. And in the past week, from 26 November to 03 December, 29 cases have been admitted to ENT Hospital. 12 are on ventilators, of which 10 are fully vaccinated. 12 patients are on oxygen, of which 7 are fully vaccinated and 5 are under observation. In the 5 regional hospitals, the rate of Covid-positive patients admitted is at 383. In quarantine, the Ministry recorded 169 passengers. The Minister reassured that the passengers of the flight from South Africa are still in quarantine and that 2 of them have tested positive. A sequencing exercise is underway on these two cases to determine if they are infected with Omicron. “22 people travelling to different islands are under quarantine and unvaccinated travellers are subject to quarantine measures,” he announced.
As for the vaccination, 927,087 adults have received their first dose, 870,815 the second and 111,067 the third / Booster Dose. 33,940 adolescents, aged 15 to 17 years, received the first dose and 28,502 the second. The Pfizer vaccine is being administered at the Octave Wiehe Auditorium in Réduit. Vaccination is also progressing in Rodrigues where more than 60% of the population has already received their second dose of the vaccines. It is still slow for the third dose with only 976 persons eligible.
Virulence of Omicron feared!
The major concern of the Ministry of Health is Omicron, the ‘Variant of Concern’. As Dr. Janaki Sonoo, the Acting Director of the Central Health Laboratory explained that the panic over Omicron is mainly about the lack of accurate information on the capacity of this variant in terms of transmissibility, hospitalisations, its effects on co-morbidities and deaths. This variant cannot be detected in 24 hours and Dr. Sonoo recalls that the last sequencing of this variant done in South Africa took about 3 weeks. “It could take 10 days to two weeks to detect,” she said.
She further explained that “the virus can be more virulent. Its mutations are estimated at more than 50, including 32 that occur directly on the Spike Protein, helping the virus to cling to cells. The results will determine its severity on health and its contagion after its multiple mutations, as well as its resistance to vaccines in administration and the immunity developed in the individual after a vaccine.”
Thus, the tests are done on the S-Gene Target failures in order to detect the Variant of Concern, as was done to determine the previous Variants of Concern such as Alpha from England, Beta from South Africa and Gamma from Brazil. She reassured that our PCR tests can detect the positive case of a variant which is then sampled for sequencing. Sequencing has been done at the Candos Central Laboratory since May 2021 and she said “we have recorded 13 imported Alpha variant cases and 28 imported Delta variant cases. 128 other cases of the Delta variant, including 39 imported and 89 local cases, were detected during the sequencing exercises.”
Speaking of Delta, she recalled that according to a sequencing carried out on a sample of 757 local cases and 7 imported cases, the Delta variant was indeed in the territory before its detection. She also pointed out that since January, samples have been sent mainly to South Africa and England for sequencing. As such, 1,223 samples were sent, of which 959 were successfully sequenced and 264 failures were obtained. A total of 796 samples were from local cases, and 163 from imported cases.
The ministry is trying to ‘keep cool’ face of this global panic and especially by keeping the borders open. Dr Jagutpal made it clear that it would “be determined over time whether closing the borders will be helpful if the Omicron contamination becomes general and not targeted”. He asked for some realism face to this panic!
