Morocco ready to roll out vaccine as soon as it receives doses

Morocco has put in place all logistical preparations to launch the mass vaccination campaign but deplores delays due to the high demand and speculations, head of the government Saad Eddine El Othmani said.

Speaking at the house of advisors Tuesday, EL Othmani said that Morocco aims to vaccinate 25 million people starting with frontliners, including health workers, security forces, teachers and people in vulnerable health condition.

Although Morocco signed at an early stage contracts with AstraZeneca and Sinopharm, it is still waiting to receive the vaccines, he said, adding that the choice for the two suppliers was governed by considerations of safety and easy storage at a temperature between 2 and 7 degrees.

He ascribed the delay in receiving the vaccine to the enormous demand adding that “it was natural for countries that produce the vaccine to purchase the first output.”

Therefore, El Othmani shunned giving a definite deadline for starting vaccination, while stressing that all logistics are in place to start the campaign as soon as the vaccine are delivered to the Kingdom.

So far, Morocco prepared 3000 vaccine locations and mobilized 25,531 health workers for the campaign which he said once started will run for 12 weeks.