In Morocco, the pandemic has almost fallen into oblivion. The restrictive measures linked to Covid-19 have almost been lifted and life has returned to normal. But anti-covid vaccination is still required to leave or access Morocco or to request administrative documents. After the imposition of the 3rd dose of the vaccine, the population began to wonder if a 4th and 5th dose will also be required. The question today is whether Covid-19 will become a seasonal virus.
The current epidemiological situation is the best since the beginning of community transmission of the virus, said for some time the coordinator of the National Center for Public Health Emergency Operations at the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, Mouad Mrabet, during of its weekly point. He nevertheless specifies that the Omicron variant continues to circulate at a low rate with its BA.2 BA.1 sub-mutants.
The spread of the virus therefore continues at a low level during this third inter-period or the post-Omicron wave period, which is still prolonged, and since the first week of March 2022.
Joined by MoroccoLatestNews UK, Moulay Said Afif, member of the anti-covid vaccination committee joins his colleague and believes that the epidemiological situation in the Kingdom is comforting for the moment, but that we should not let our guard down. But it does, however, raise the question of the transformation of the coronavirus into a seasonal virus.
” If ever the coronavirus is considered a seasonal virus, there will be neither 4th nor 5th dose. Anti-covid vaccination will be reserved for vulnerable people with chronic diseases such as diabetes for example“, explains Dr. Afif.
Thus, and if the coronavirus is confirmed to be a seasonal virus, this member of the anti-covid vaccination committee believes that it will become like the seasonal flu with an injection of the vaccine once a year for vulnerable people.
” LStudies have shown that there is no point in multiplying vaccine doses because the immune response becomes weak“, also points out the specialist.
Covid-19 contaminations are falling very slightly around the world. But World Health Organization officials continue to argue that the Covid-19 disease is far from endemic and can still cause large outbreaks.
” We are still in the middle of this pandemic, we all wish it weren’t, but we are not endemic“, had declared in this sense Maria Van Kerkhove, the person in charge of the fight against the Covid for the WHO who announced, during a session of questions and answers on social networks that she herself contracted the virus. .
For his part, Michael Ryan, the WHO’s emergency manager, estimated that we are not yet close to an endemic situation with this virus. According to this expert, the virus “ does not yet fully follow a temporal rhythm, or a seasonal pattern (…) and the disease therefore remains quite volatile. It is still capable of causing large epidemics as we have seen, and even among populations that have been previously exposed “pointing out that” when a disease becomes endemic it does not mean that the disease is not serious”.
