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Rabat – Recent data indicate only 0.037% of fully vaccinated individuals (two doses) were infected by COVID19 in Morocco.
Currently, there are at least nine vaccines in the world that have been shown to be very effective in preventing the disease.
Reports also show a significant difference in both the severity of symptoms, and side effects that come with being COVID positive.
This means that although vaccinated, one can still be infected with the virus, but the vaccine minimizes the severity of the infection, and prevents long lasting chronic side effects.
In Seychelles for example, the most vaccinated country in the world back in May 2021, Covid-19 cases skyrocketed in May. The archipelago has a population of nearly 100,000. 72% of the population has received the two doses of the vaccine. But the contamination curve exploded. On May 13, Blommberg recalls, a third of the 900 reported cases were fully vaccinated.
Faced with the resurgence of Covid cases in the midst of a seemingly successful vaccination campaign, President Wavel Ramkalawan told CNN: “The majority of people who tested positive were those who had not been vaccinated. As for the vaccinated people who had Covid-19, they were asymptomatic.”
The Seychelles case, and other instances of covid infections among vaccinated people, became a convenient argument for anti-vaxxers. It is important to address the rampant misinformation circulating online regarding the necessity to get the vaccine.
To simplify the question of covid infection among the vaccinated, there needs to be an understanding about the two main types of immunity you can get from vaccines.
One is called “effective immunity,” which can prevent a pathogen from causing serious disease, but cannot prevent it from entering the body or making more copies of itself.
The other is “sterilizing immunity”, which can prevent infection and even prevent asymptomatic cases.
Ideally, a vaccine should be able to produce sterilizing immunity, but this is rarely achieved.
Although most available vaccines today give the body “effective immunity,” sterilizing immunity is yet to be a direct result of any vaccine.
In the case of Morocco, reports from medical personnel on the ground confirm that although vaccinated Moroccans develop COVID-19 symptoms when exposed to the virus, the severity of their symptoms is reduced in comparison to unvaccinated patients.
Corona Virus has been linked to increasing the risk of adverse outcomes through severe pneumonia, lethal diabetes complications, kidney failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The message from authorities and experts is clear: getting vaccinated is an effective way to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, and citizens should not consider infections among the vaccinated as a sign of the vaccine’s efficiency.
As of today, over 9 million Moroccans have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This number is bound to increase as Morocco recently announced plans to expand its national vaccination campaign to 35-39-year olds.
In addition to that, Morocco’s announcement of the vaccine manufacturing deal is only set to accelerate the vaccination campaign, allowing Morocco to fully vaccinate the entirety of the population and control the deadly complications that come with a covid infection.
Morocco’s vital struggle today is less about the availability of the vaccine or medical equipment, but more about fighting misinformation surrounding the rumoured inefficiency of the vaccine.
