The Ministry of Health recorded 228 asymptomatic cases and 4 serious cases at the ENT hospital. However, the same hospital sent a press release on the death of a 67-year-old patient who had tested positive for Covid-19.
This patient was duly vaccinated. Tested positive, he was admitted to a treatment centre for observation. But his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to ENT hospital. However, his condition did not improve and the patient breathed his last on Tuesday morning and the cause of his death is directly attributed to Covid.
The vaccination campaign is going well. To date, 816,020 people have been vaccinated and 748,954 people have received their two doses. However, the vaccine is not a guarantee, as illustrated by this death recorded on Tuesday. In fact, vigilance will have to be maximised as we are not immune to the variants and the concern is of general interest, especially with the reopening of our borders without restrictions for inoculated and PCR negative people.
C.1.2 detected in Mauritius
This Monday 30th August, the National Institute of Communicable Diseases of South Africa (NICD) released a report on the presence of the C.1.2 variant in South Africa, which has also been detected in China, England, New Zealand and Mauritius. The news was confirmed by the Virologist and government spokesperson, Dr Catherine Gaud. “Two passengers from Kenya and South Africa, who arrived here in January and June respectively, were carriers of the variant. Quarantined, both cases were successfully treated and no contamination was noted” she announced
Internationally, and particularly in South Africa, the low frequency of the variant rules it out as a ‘variant of interest’ or ‘variant of concern‘. As NICD researcher Penny Moore says, “At this stage, we don’t have experimental data to confirm how it responds, in terms of antibody susceptibility.” This is confirmed by our virologist: “We don’t know how dangerous the variant is. In Mauritius, according to the sequencing done at the Candos laboratory, the only variant in circulation is B 1.1.318” she says. Therefore, the C.1.2 variant is in no way comparable to the dangerous Alpha and Delta also detected in passengers but not in circulation on the island.
