Casablanca (Morocco) (AFP)
Morocco has set up its first smart vaccinodrome on the outskirts of Casablanca and intends to develop these connected vaccination centers across the country to curb the pandemic, while Covid-19 contaminations have been on the rise for several days.
Opened last week, this connected vaccinodrome makes it possible to digitize a patient's journey from registration to vaccination, including screening for Covid, with a QR code to be scanned at each stage.
This will make it possible to "accelerate the rate of vaccination" with the possibility of vaccinating up to 4,000 people per day, a representative of the Ministry of Health, Mohamed Benchekroun, told AFP.
While the national vaccination campaign was extended on Saturday to people 20 years of age or over, 15.3 million have already received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and more than 11 million the second dose in this Maghreb country of 36 million inhabitants.
The kingdom is facing a new wave of Covid-19 contaminations and deaths: in total, 701,325 cases, including 10,404 deaths, have been recorded since the start of screening in March 2020, according to an official report.
The occupancy rate of intensive care beds reserved for patients with Covid-19 is close to 47%, according to the same source.
The outbreak of the epidemic prompted the authorities to widen the nighttime curfew and restrict travel to and from three major cities in the country: Casablanca, Marrakech and Agadir.
© 2021 AFP