A communique from the Ministry of Health dated 3rd January 2021 confirmed that for the first time in Seychelles a man has died of COVID-19.
The 57 year old Seychellois man died from complications of his illness at Seychelles’ Isolation and Treatment Centre for COVID-19 in the early evening hours, amid an uptick of new COVID-19 cases in the country.
In its communique, the Ministry of Health expressed condolences to the family and renewed its resolve to invest all efforts needed to break the chain of transmission.
The next day, 4th January, President of the Republic, Wavel Ramkalawan, also spoke to the nation on the death of the man and expressed “heartfelt sympathies” to the family, whom, he said, he knows personally. He provided reassurance that the country is doing every thing possible to prevent further deaths and reverse the current trend of the pandemic in the Seychelles.
More than 300 cases of COVID-19, in total, have been confirmed in Seychelles since the beginning of the pandemic. More than two thirds of these cases have recovered. More than three quarters of the cases have been foreigners who came to the country as tourists or foreign workers and were found positive on arrival.
Despite the requirement for 48 hours negative PCR test for entry into Seychelles, it has been impossible to prevent the importation of cases of the pandemic into the country.
Since after Christmas Day of 2020, the health authorities are recording a gradual increase in the number of local transmissions of COVID-19, described now as clear evidence community transmission.
Seychelles Patients Association 