MOROCCO – All Moroccan regions have reported low COVID-19 transmission moving the country to the green alert level thus confirming the decline of the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
The Covid-19 alert system is divided into five levels: blue (normal), green (low alert), yellow (moderate alert), orange (high alert), and red (very high alert).
Recently, six Moroccan regions namely Dakhla-Oued Eddahab, Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra, Souss-Massa, Draa-Tafilalt, Beni Mellal-Khenifra and the Oriental region were listed at the orange alert level.
After spending two weeks at the orange level, the pandemic situation is green in all Moroccan regions with the latest figures showing a positivity rate of 1.18% to date.
24,842,826 million Moroccans have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, 23,292,458 million people are fully vaccinated and 563,243 million people have received the vaccine booster.
Morocco recorded 142 cases and 8 deaths linked to COVID-19 on 27th February marking a downward trend in comparison to the past couple of weeks.
It is high on the international COVID-19 resilience ranking with France putting the North African country on its green list.
In addition, Germany has also removed Morocco from its list of high-risk COVID-19 countries.
The move is a further indication that there is a negligible circulation of the virus and an absence of an emerging worrying COVID-19 variant.
The Coordinator of Morocco’s National Center for Public Health Emergency Operations at the Ministry of Health and Social Protection Dr. Mouad Merabet said the country is moving to the green level of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and the Omicron wave is in pre-closure.
“The Omicron wave is not yet closed and another week at the green level is necessary to remain in compliance with the rules for evaluating the level of transmission,” he maintained.
He added that the few provinces in the orange level will most likely move to the green level.
COVID-19 testing slows in Africa
Meanwhile, the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have announced that continental testing is decreasing amid a receding global wave of COVID-19 infections.
The global decline in new confirmed cases has declined across Africa from nearly 300,000 cases on December 27th to only 53,489 on February 14th.
Southern Africa where the Omicron variant was first detected continues to have the heaviest case load with 5.1 million cases reported so far followed by North Africa which has to date recorded 3.4 million infections since the pandemic emerged.
The decline can be attributed to most African states facing difficulties in procuring sufficient COVID-19 vaccines to protect local populations.
Several Sahel and Central African states have only been able to issue less than 15 doses per 100 citizens compared to Morocco where independently procured Chinese COVID-19 vaccines allowed for 144.78 doses to be issued per 100 members of the population.
COVID-19 testing in Morocco has seen a similar drop as witnessed across the continent.
With cases on the decline, Moroccan public health officials performed only 14,801 tests recently detecting an encouragingly low 259 new cases.
Morocco has performed more than 11 million tests since the start of the pandemic making up more than 10% of all tests on the African continent.
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