Morocco announced Monday, July 5 a project for the local manufacture of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine against Covid-19, with ” short term “ a production capacity of 5 million doses per month, according to the Moroccan press agency MAP.
A memorandum of cooperation between the kingdom and the Chinese pharmaceutical group Sinopharm was signed during a ceremony chaired by King Mohammed VI, MAP reported. The project will require a global investment of around 421 million euros, she said.
More than 10 million people vaccinated
The manufacture of the Sinopharm vaccine – whose start date has not been specified – will start “In the short term with a production capacity of 5 million doses (…) before gradually increasing this capacity ”, the agency said. The project aims to strengthen “Health sovereignty” of the country facing “To external dependencies and political contingencies”, according to the same source.
The country of 36 million people has vaccinated more than 10 million people, including 9.1 million with the two required injections, since the start of the vaccination campaign at the end of January with the Chinese Sinopharm and British AstraZeneca vaccines.
Contaminations are on the rise in Morocco, with a total of 534,797 cases, including 9,329 deaths according to a latest official report, prompting the Ministry of Health to call for compliance with preventive measures to avoid a “Tightening of restrictions”. At the end of May, the kingdom relaxed the various restrictions put in place against the Covid-19 and reopened its air borders with several countries, mainly European.