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Rabat – Morocco started its vaccination campaign for the benefit of its citizens on January 28, 2021. With a population of around 36 million, Morocco has already vaccinated 8.57 million people, equivalent to 23.5% of its population. Amid the ongoing global pandemic and the need for more vaccines to achieve international herd immunity, Morocco is now considering locally producing COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Moulay Mustapha Naji, a medical professor in Rabat, spoke with Morocco World News about the possibility of vaccine self-sufficiency in Morocco.
According to Dr. Naji, Morocco aims to develop a manufacturing industry to make the vaccines available for its population.
Doctor Naji stated that a government-sponsored project is underway, but that the timeline is still unknown as the government has remained tight-lipped on the matter. Private interests and companies, notably Sotherma, are also pushing to make the ambition of locally producing vaccines a reality, given the potential profits it could yield.
“I do not think that anyone can put forward an exact date, this kind of project requires preparation and partners,” he said.
According to Dr. Naji, the agreement between Morocco and China, which will grant Morocco the technology to set up COVID-19 vaccine units, is still being “finalized”.
“At the moment it’s not complete but we are working on it. It’s a difficult and long process and it needs time,” he said.
When it comes to producing essential commodities for a country, independence is an important asset. In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, it appears that the best way to ensure the availability of the vaccine to all its citizens is by achieving production autonomy.
Race to self-sufficiency
Morocco has a short time frame to mobilize its resources and production with a technological partner to start its local production.
According to a report by Jeune Afrique in December 2020, Morocco nourished ambitions of becoming a producer of all kinds of vaccines and has embarked on a race to achieve this goal since the onset of the pandemic.
The same source points out that Morocco signed an agreement with Beijing on August 20 to partner in phase III of the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm’s clinical trials.
The agreement also provided Morocco with the technological transfer of the production of the vaccine, so Morocco can also start producing it and shipping it to other African countries.
This means that Sothema, one of the Moroccan groups that participated in Sinopharm’s clinical trials, could start producing its own vaccines.
In an interview with Les Ecos in March 2021, the group’s CEO Lamia Tazi said Morocco is capable of the task of producing, as long as Morocco “imposes on its vaccine suppliers a Tech transfer clause.” She gave the example of Thailand, which did the same with AstraZeneca, despite being less developed than Morocco. The country required tech transfer as a clause for the agreement to produce the vaccine for its population.
AstraZeneca not only agreed to the clause, but it also helped a Thai pharmaceutical company to build and equip its first vaccine unit, explained Tazi. She also noted that Morocco’s technological platform has skills and expertise in advanced manufacturing and, thus, can undertake this project.
Other countries such as Egypt, South Africa, and Algeria have also announced upcoming work on manufacturing units.
Morocco, however, has yet to make any official statement. Little details are available about this project that could accelerate the return of regular economic activity in Morocco and Africa through distribution, as mass vaccination of populations is the next milestone to overcome the COVID-19 global pandemic.
“Morocco aims to become a producer of vaccines of all kinds with a high-tech vaccine production platform in the Mohammed VI technological city of Tangier,” said Khalid Ait Taleb, the Moroccan Minister of Health, in an interview with Sputnik in November of 2020.
“This factory will allow the development of vaccines ‘made in Morocco’ and ensure the self-sufficiency of the country while supplying the African continent and our Maghreb neighbors.”
Ait Taleb added that officials were “working hard to expand production at the Institut Pasteur in Casablanca,” which could well become a platform for public-private partnerships.
The Minister said that the project could take some time to concretize but that by the end of 2021, Morocco could start producing its vaccines, stipulating that this will be in the context of the agreement with China’s Sinopharm to transfer production technologies to Morocco.
While prospects for Morocco becoming a hub for vaccine production in Africa appear to be promising, others are skeptical about this project and have questioned its economic viability.
The Moroccan market is too small to allow the establishment of a competitive vaccine industry,” said Ali Sedrati, CEO of FMIIP.
FMIIP stands for the Moroccan Federation of Industry and Pharmaceutical Innovation, a non-profit professional association founded in 1975 aimed at “strengthening the Moroccan health sector as a whole, and improving the accessibility of innovative drugs.”
However, the prospect of Morocco establishing its vaccine units could prove beneficial for the country and the continent as a whole, according to Maryam Filali Lahlou, CEO of the group Pharma 5.
