Rabat – On April 12, the Moroccan Head of Government Saad Dine El Othmani warned of the spread of the British variant of COVID-19 throughout Morocco.
“As of April 9, Morocco has registered 115 confirmed cases of the variant,” El Othmani said during a joint plenary session of the two houses of the parliament. There are also “1,500 semi-confirmed cases of the same variant, bringing the overall number to around 1,600 spread across the kingdom,” he added.
El Othmani voiced his concern over the British strain, as it is both more contagious and affects younger people more. Speaking of the Ramadan curfew, he noted that a total lockdown was being considered, but the government decided to extend the curfew instead.
The Head of Government also spoke in hopeful terms of Morocco’s vaccination campaign. The country has to date inoculated more than 11% of the population, making its vaccine rollout one of the world’s most successful campaigns in terms of administered doses per capita.
The spread of the British variant, thought to be more contagious, has seen several cities and towns across Morocco re-introduced strict COVID-19 related measures. Dakhla started a three-day lockdown on April 1 after health officials detected 40 cases of the mutated strain in the region of Dakhla-Oued Eddahab.
Read also: New COVID-19 Cases Increasing Once Again In Morocco
On the same day, local news announced that Tinghir, a town on the edge of the High Atlas, will also face new restrictive measures, after health officials detected more than 10 cases of the mutated virus in the small Moroccan town.
Morocco’s ministry of health announced on April 5 that the sequencing of the complete genome allowed the confirmation of the strain’s presence in seven regions across the country.
“No other variant of concern has been confirmed,” the statement added.
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