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Join on Telegram Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Health Khalid Ait Taleb has announced he expects the country to reach “herd immunity” against COVID-19 within 5 months. Minister Ait Taleb announced that Morocco could expect to reach the coveted national immunity within “3-5 months.”
Ait Taleb announced Morocco’s ambitious deadline for its vaccination campaign as he toured vaccination centers in the Beni Mellal-Khenifra region to mark the start of the vaccination campaign. The health minister stated that Morocco plans to vaccinate 80% of the country’s population, roughly 30 million people, in the coming 3-5 months.
Once the country will have vaccinated 80% of the population, it would reach the status of having achieved “herd immunity.” Herd immunity refers to a state where COVID-19 would be unable to spread because a significant section of the population would be immune to infection, which would protect the remaining 20% of non-vaccinated people as well.
Ait Taleb confirmed that Morocco’s vaccination campaign to stop COVID-19 is going as planned. The nationwide operation is unfolding “under favorable conditions,” he said, indicating that one million Moroccans have already received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The health minister toured vaccination centers in the Beni Mellal region as part of his role in overseeing the rollout of the country’s national campaign. He indicated that Morocco’s health authorities were closely monitoring the evolution of the virus, including that of possible mutations as have been detected in the UK and South Africa.
Morocco is using “advanced genomic surveillance” to detect the spread of any possible COVID-19 mutations, Ait Taleb explained. Monitoring for mutations of the COVID-19 virus in Morocco has become a point of focus after three cases of the British mutation were detected in the country. Ait Taleb did however confirm that no cases of the South African variation had been reported in Morocco.
Morocco’s national vaccination campaign against COVID-19 has now reached 1,112,103 citizens who have received their first dose of the vaccine. Both the Chinese SInopharm and British Astrazeneca vaccines used in Morocco require two doses before immunity is reached.
