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Rabat – Abdulla Shahid, the president of the UN General Assembly, has expressed satisfaction with Morocco’s response to the COVID-19 crisis and the country’s plans to become an exporter of COVID vaccines in the coming years.
The UN official said he supports all actions that contribute to immunization equity, particularly in Africa.
“I note that Morocco is one of only five countries that have reached the World Health Organization (WHO) target of vaccinating 40M of the population against COVID-19,” he said.
The senior UN official applauded Morocco’s efforts to become a manufacturer of vaccines, saying that the UN favors all efforts that contribute to the production and distribution of vaccines, especially in Africa “where several countries do not have the same vaccination rates as in Europe or North America.”
On January 27, King Mohammed VI launched the construction works for the establishment of a COVID and other vaccine manufacturing in the province of Benslimane, in the Casablanca-Settat region.
As well as enabling Morocco to reach its goal of achieving vaccine self-sufficiency, the industrial unit seeks to make the country a vaccine manufacturing powerhouse in the African continent.
Through this large-scale project, the North African country wants to transfer the aseptic filling and manufacturing of active substances of more than 20 vaccines and bio-therapeutic products, including three anti-COVID vaccines in less than three years.
The goal is to cover more than 70% of Morocco’s vaccine needs and over 60% of that of the continent.
The North African country has fully vaccinated 23, 079, 723 people as of January 31, with recipients of the first and booster doses reaching 24,658,729 and 4,441,797, respectively.
Shahid believes that vaccine equity is “essential” to curb the spread COVID and return to a sense of pre-COVID normalcy worldwide.
“The more time passes, the more likely it is that new variants will emerge,” the UN official said, noting that he will convene a high-level meeting on the appearance of COVID variants on February 25.
