Rabat – Minister of Health Khalid Ait Taleb announced on Monday that Morocco is set to participate in various “multicenter trials” to obtain sufficient doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The minister said in a press statement that Morocco will participate with other countries in the COVID-19 vaccine trials “as long as it has the legal regulatory framework allowing [Morocco] to position itself to obtain the sufficient vaccine for citizens in a timely manner.”
Morocco’s participation in the trials seeks to guarantee “self-sufficiency” in relation to COVID-19 vaccine production, the minister said.
The announcement comes amid the high increase in the daily number of COVID-19 cases in the country.
Since August 11, Morocco has recorded over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases every day.
The total number of confirmed cases is 42,489, including 29,344 recoveries.
Over 12,487 patients are receiving treatment for COVID-19.
The number of COVID-19-related deaths also surged recently, with over a dozen fatalities now being reported daily. Morocco’s COVID-19 death toll has reached 658, with 26 new fatalities on Sunday. The fatality rate is 1.55%.
The number of suspected cases that tested negative since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March reached 1,563,124 on Sunday.
The race for the COVID-19 vaccine began a few months ago. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin recently announced that the country has developed a COVID-19 vaccine and will begin producing it.
India also announced that it is ready to mass-produce COVID-19 vaccines once scientists give the green light.
“Not one, not two, as many as three coronavirus vaccines are being tested in India,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on August 15.
In the US, immunologist Moncef Slaoui, who was born in Morocco, is leading President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 vaccine development team, Operation Warp Speed.
Slaoui said earlier this month that he is “optimistic” that there will soon be COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans, “ideally within the first half of 2021.”
Trump’s Operation Warp Speed is funding eight potential COVID-19 vaccines and hopes to deliver 300 million doses by January 2021.
