Morocco to use Chinese vaccine to kick off mass inoculations

RABAT, Morocco — Morocco is gearing up for an ambitious COVID-19 vaccination program, aiming to vaccinate 80 percent of its adults, or 25 million people, in an operation starting this month that’s relying initially on a Chinese vaccine that has not yet completed advanced trials to prove it is safe and effective.

On Tuesday, King Mohammed VI instructed the government to make the vaccine free, according to a Royal Palace statement.

The first injections could come within days, a Health Ministry official told The Associated Press. Facing a public skeptical about the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, medical experts and health officials have appeared on television in recent weeks to promote the COVID-19 vaccines and encourage Moroccans to get immunized.

While Britain began its vaccination program Tuesday with the Pfizer-biontech vaccine and the U.S. and European Union are racing to approve a series of Western-made vaccines, other governments are looking to use vaccines from China and Russia.

The World Health Organization has said new vaccines should first be tested in tens of thousands of people to prove they work and don’t cause worrisome side effects before being rolled out broadly. But the U.N. health agency also says it’s is up to individual countries to decide whether there is an urgent domestic need to use a vaccine shot, even without such data.

Morocco is battling a resurgence in virus infections, with the number of recorded deaths from the virus surpassing 6,000.

The North African kingdom is pinning its hopes on two vaccine candidates, one developed by China’s Sinopharm and the other by Britain’s Oxford University and Astrazeneca.