After having fully vaccinated over 19 million people, Morocco’s ambitions to reach herd immunity against the coronavirus pick up, as thousands of people begin to receive their third booster shot.
Morocco has acquired some 66 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, and is expected to fully vaccinate 33 million people, enough to achieve mass vaccination experts say.
According to Jamal Eddine El Bouzidi, professor of chest and respiratory illnesses, herd immunity can be achieved once 50 percent of the population has been vaccinated or infected.
Morocco is close to achieving mass immunization, the professor added in a statement to Hespress, however, it all depends on whether new dangerous variants immerge.
El Bouzidi refused the masses’ questioning of the vaccines and the booster shot, stating “there are many vaccines that are taken intermittently, and many of them are renewed every year or every 5 years or more, so where is the issue in receiving a new dose?”
Morocco has fully vaccinated 55 percent of its population, but according to Tayeb Hamdi, expert in health policies and systems, Morocco needs to vaccinate 87.5 percent of its population for herd immunity.
For Hamdi, “protection is now linked to receiving the vaccine, and herd immunity will not be able to protect some vulnerable groups if they do not receive the vaccine, especially in the face of frequent viral mutations,” he told Hespress.
“The importance of the third dose lies in recognizing the response of some groups to resistance to the virus,” Hamdi added, noting that “the lack of efficacy of vaccines may emerge gradually in some.”
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