Rabat – Morocco received an additional shipment of 2 million Sinopharm vaccines from China on May 23.
The shipment arrived in Casablanca on Sunday, delivered by two Royal Air Maroc Dreamliners. This makes it the second sizable delivery last week alone, following the arrival of a shipment of another 2 million doses on May 19.
President of the National People’s Congress of China, Li Zhanshu promised Morocco’s House of Representatives, Habib El Malki, to supply Rabat with approximately 10 million doses of the vaccine between April and May. The latest shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from Beijing has brought that number of deliveries to 7 million in the last two months.
China delivered two smaller shipments, of half a million doses, of the vaccine on April 26, and an additional half a million on April 30. This, at the time, allowed the Moroccan Ministry of Health to expand its vaccination campaign to include 50 year-olds.
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Morocco’s ministry of health expanded the national vaccination campaign again on May 16, this time to include vaccines for 45 to 50-year-old citizens and residents. In a press release, the ministry urged Moroccans to engage in the national vaccination campaign to help the country achieve herd immunity.
Besides Sinopharm, Morocco has also received a number of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine shipments, both from the Serum Institute of India, as well as through the COVAX program’s South Korean manufacturer. Morocco received the last COVAX shipment between May 15 and May 16 including approximately 650,000 Oxford/AstraZeneca doses from a total of over 1.6 million.
As of May 23, Moroccan authorities have registered a total of 517,023,211 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 9,112 confirmed deaths. So far, 505,228 people have recovered.
Moroccan health authorities have administered over 12 million doses in total, Administering 7,635,674 Moroccan nationals and residents with the first dose, and an additional 4,831,397 with the second dose.
