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Rabat – The Ministry of Health has deployed a mobile COVID-19 testing laboratory in Morocco’s hardest-hit city, Casablanca, to strengthen the economic capital’s screening capacity with fast and accurate tests.
The laboratory is set to perform approximately 600 tests daily, adding to the national daily testing capacity, which stood at 16,672 tests as of 6 p.m. on June 8.
In line with King Mohammed VI’s call for mass COVID-19 testing for private-sector employees as Morocco warms up its economy, the mobile laboratory intends to primarily serve private sector companies.
The King’s large-scale screening initiative aims to facilitate the reopening of Morocco’s economy while preserving the health of employees and their families.
The mobile lab is set to target workers in industrial units as part of the health ministry’s strategy to stem the spread of COVID-19 by treating carriers before they can pass the virus on to others.
Read also: Morocco’s Health Ministry Rejects Reports of High COVID-19 Test Costs
The Director of the National Institute of Hygiene (INH), Mohamed Rhajaoui, said the laboratory will provide technical support by providing fast tests for workers to avoid the disruption of business activities.
The mobile lab uses “the reference technique which is PCR (polymerase chain reaction), the same used in fixed laboratories,” Rhajaoui explained. “This technique revolves around three phases, namely the extraction of Ribonucleic acid (RNA), the addition of reagents, and amplification.”
The Ministry of Health previously set up three mobile COVID-19 testing labs in the Fez-Meknes region and deployed mobile labs to remote areas in March.
Over the past few weeks, the Ministry of Health has ramped up the number of daily COVID-19 tests in an attempt to reach 1.5 million tests in total by the end of July or the beginning of August.
