COVID-19: Casablanca to transform international exhibition center into 700-bed hospital

Local authorities in Morocco’s largest city of Casablanca announced their plan to transform an exhibition center into a hospital able to accommodate 700 coronavirus patients.

The exhibition center is the largest in Morocco stretching over a surface area of 20,000 square meters, authorities said in a statement.

The center will be transformed into a hospital in two weeks for a total cost of 45 million dirhams, the statement said.

Also in Casablanca, the Mohammed VI University of Health Sciences (UM6SS) has set up a hospital unit to accommodate patients diagnosed with Covid-19.
The unit has 42 conventional hospital beds, as well as 9 intensive care unit beds for the most serious cases.

The University’s National Reference Laboratory (LNR) has been equipped with a  platform for quick biological screening and diagnosis of Covid-19.

The university has also contributed to the training of health professionals (doctors, nurses, technicians, etc.) to provide high quality care to coronavirus patients.

The moves will further boost Morocco’s hospital capacity as the government announced that it intends to increase the number of intensive care beds to 3000.

Morocco has imposed a confinement across all its territories and infections however have been growing to 1021 including 70 deaths and 76 recoveries.

Most cases have been found in Casablanca with 259 cases followed by Marrakech 179 and Rabat 94.

A financial committee announced that Morocco will spend 200 million dollars to buy 1000 intensive care beds in addition to testing kits, medicine and protective gear to fight the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, health authorities in Morocco urged citizens to abide by the confinement measures as hot spots in families emerge as a worrying factor.

At least 23 members of the same family contracted the virus in one week in the south-eastern locality of Errich after contacting a Moroccan living in Italy.