Marruecos inocula más de medio millón de vacunas 

The Moroccan authorities have reported that a total of 615,181 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 so far. The country thus surpasses the threshold of half a million immunised and is the leader in vaccination in Africa.   

Morocco also ranks twelfth on the Oxford University list of new vaccinations. The Kingdom outstrips, among others, countries such as Spain and Saudi Arabia. In the last 24 hours, Moroccan health authorities have inoculated more than 65,000 people with the vaccine. 

These figures are the result of the first mass vaccination campaign led by King Mohamed VI. The second phase of the process is expected to begin in the coming weeks. Moroccan experts plan to vaccinate 80 per cent of the population in three months and thus achieve mass immunity before the month of Ramadan. 

However, Morocco has also recorded 536 new infections and 16 deaths in the last 24 hours. The Ministry of Health included in the figures the recovery of 1,035 patients, who join the 456,000 cured since the pandemic began. The recovery rate has reached 95.7%. 

Of the 476,000 cases recorded by the Kingdom since March, 8,424 people have died from the virus. The case fatality rate stands at 1.8 per cent in the country, but more people in Morocco have been immunised than the total number of infections throughout the pandemic. 

Despite the progress made, the Moroccan Ministry of Health indicated that restrictions and health measures would remain in place, and that it would not be until after the end of the vaccination campaign that the government would introduce more lax measures. 

Morocco launched the vaccination campaign on Thursday 28 January, after receiving 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 500,000 doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine. The Kingdom's authorities began distributing the doses the same week. 

The vaccines will be available to all Moroccans over the age of 17. However, it was health personnel, the Kingdom's security forces and teachers who were the first to have access to them. 

The government has set up a total of 2,880 fixed points in hospitals, universities, sports centres and workplaces, as well as 7,000 mobile centres to carry out the vaccination campaign. However, each centre has only one type of vaccine. 

The Moroccan government reached an agreement with the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm last August. In the agreement, the Kingdom committed to host clinical trials of its vaccine, as well as the construction of a manufacturing plant for doses. The agreement with AstraZeneca dates back to September.