Morocco receives first shipment of Pfizer vaccine

Morocco has received a first shipment of 600,000 jabs developed by Pfizer-BioNTech as it plans to expand inoculation to people aged 12, health ministry sources said.

The new shipment is part of an order of about 2 million jabs of the powerful vaccine which should help safeguard gains made by Morocco’s vaccination campaign.

Morocco also received, on Friday August 13, one million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, bringing the total of the Chinese vaccine delivered so far to the Kingdom to 23.5 million. Most of the doses administered in the country are provided by Sinopharm, followed by AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson.

 

Morocco has already opened vaccination to people aged 20 as universities required vaccine pass for registration and this Saturday, the Health Ministry announced that vaccination will be extended to people aged 18 and over.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health calls on people aged 18 and over to go to nearest vaccination centers to get their jab. The new measure, which is not conditioned by place of residence or address, aims to speed up the national vaccination campaign, the ministry said.

 

According to some press reports, the inoculation will shortly be expanded to youths in the 12-17 age bracket.

 

So far Morocco has administered 27.4 million jabs maintaining its leadership in Africa as the country with most vaccinated people.

The vaccine campaign has stepped up to counter the advent of new and more contagious various variants which caused a surge in critical cases in Morocco.

Over the last few days Morocco has been registering nearly 10,000 new cases daily and deaths in some days surpassed the 100 threshold.

Morocco restored night curfew starting 21:00, social distancing measures and ordered catering services to not exceed 50% capacity.