Covid-19: 2,000 Laboratory Tests Conducted Daily, Minister

​Rabat - The frequency of laboratory tests for suspected coronavirus (Covid-19) cases has increased significantly to 2,000 tests per day, said Health Minister Khalid Ait Taleb on Monday. In response to an oral question presented by opposition groups to the House of Representatives on "proactive and operational measures taken to combat the Covid-19", Ait Taleb highlighted "an increase in the frequency of laboratory testing, especially since the contact persons are automatically subjected to tests which now total 2,000 per day.

" According to the Minister, the analyzes will be extended thanks to the increasing use of rapid tests. He also noted that "the mortality rate in Morocco does not exceed 5%", insisting on the need to "continue to be vigilant and to maintain the level of the speed indicator of the propagation at the same threshold during a fixed period, to be able to stem the epidemic". "Despite the constraints, the epidemiological situation is tending to stabilize, which hardly means that we have won the battle against the coronavirus. This is the reason why the state of health emergency remains in force", said Ait Taleb. He also underlined that the extension of the state of health emergency aims to reinforce the gains, while deeming that "any slackening is likely to result in the appearance of clusters or relapses," Ait Taleb noted the ministry is looking into the development of a strategy to lift the lockdown, a fact that requires the expansion of the network of laboratory tests. "The lockdown will be lifted gradually at the national level, since the epidemiological situation remains stable, but differs from one region to another," he explained. In this regard, the Minister recalled that the Casablanca-Settat region has the highest number of confirmed cases, followed by Marrakech-Safi, while the evolution of the disease in the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region has been marked by the recent emergence of outbreaks of contamination.