Hospitals must be able to accommodate people suffering from diseases other than Covid-19, Health Minister Khalid Ait Taleb said on Saturday July 25 in Rabat.
Speaking during a webinar organized under the theme “Covid-19, Flu, HPV and pneumococcus: importance of vaccination, what recommendations?”, The Minister deemed it necessary to ensure that national hospitals can accommodate , in addition to patients with Covid-19, people suffering from other diseases or in need of urgent care.
These are mainly pregnant women, children to be vaccinated, people with kidney failure, cancer or those needing urgent operations, he stressed, insisting on the need to ensure the continuity of medical care in the Kingdom.
The Minister, on the other hand, noted that the Royal High Directives served as a roadmap for the fight against the pandemic and made it possible to avoid “tragic scenarios”, affirming that the epidemiological situation of the Kingdom remains “reassuring” .
However, the government official deplores the increase in deaths and cases of SARS-Cov-2 infection in recent days, and in this regard highlighted the massive screening action organized to fight against the spread of this pandemic .
He considered that the decision to gradually lift the state of health emergency was taken with a view to a gradual return to “normal” economic and social life, calling on citizens to show responsibility and to respect all health measures put in place by the authorities, in particular frequent hand washing, wearing a protective mask, ventilating confined spaces or respecting social distancing.
To this end, Mr. Ait Taleb underlines that everyone must respect these barrier gestures, in particular within companies, institutions and collective spaces, noting that this is the only “effective recipe” to limit the spread of this virus with which “we are called to coexist for months yet” while waiting for an effective and safe vaccine.
Highlighting, on the other hand, the exceptional circumstances in which the festival of Aid Al Adha is celebrated this year, the Minister called on citizens to show responsibility by avoiding travel, family visits, hugs and hugs and by respecting the barrier measures put in place by the ministry.
In this sense, Mr. Ait Taleb felt that a return to containment is possible at any time, if the preventive measures are not properly respected, as the virus remains omnipresent.
The slightest relaxation can be an opportunity for the virus to affect vulnerable people, warns the minister, who called on the population to strictly respect health measures in order to guarantee the health security of all.
For his part, the president of InfoVac-Maroc, Moulay Said Afif pointed out, in his speech, the importance of respecting the health measures decreed by the authorities, in particular the wearing of a protective mask, “an effective means of limiting the spread of Covid-19 and protect vulnerable populations “.
Mr. Afif, on the same note, highlighted the importance of continuing vaccinations, especially in children, but also in people at risk.
The president of InfoVac Maroc took the opportunity to call on citizens, especially pregnant women and the sick or the elderly, to be vaccinated in the next season against seasonal flu, emphasizing the severity of seasonal flu combined with the new coronavirus for this category of the population.
The professor of pediatrics, Robert Cohen, for his part focused his presentation on Covid-19 and vaccination, stressing in this regard the importance of the Calmette and Guérin bile vaccine (BCG), which, in addition to its protective effect against tuberculosis, has positive nonspecific collateral effects on the immune system. This allows the BCG vaccine to perform a protective role against several infections, he said.
“One hypothesis is that BCG vaccination could play a role in protecting against Covid-19”, notes the professor, adding that randomized trials are underway to assess whether BCG reduces the incidence and severity of Covid-19 among caregivers.
Regarding the pneumococcal vaccine, Mr. Cohen said that it has no direct impact on the course of Covid-19, but that it protects patients against pneumococcal infections that can occur in the form of complications other respiratory infections (such as influenza), highlighting the need to vaccinate the population as evidenced by official recommendations.
With regard to vaccines against SARS-Cov-2, the specialist estimated that it will take several months before one or more vaccines are demonstrated to be effective.
This general public webinar organized by the Moroccan Society of Medical Sciences, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and in partnership, in particular, with the Association of Pediatricians of Free Practice of the Wilaya of Rabat, the Casablanca Association of Private Pediatricians, the Moroccan Society of Pediatrics and the Moroccan Society of Pediatric Infectious Disease and Vaccinology, was the opportunity to address various topics related to vaccination in this exceptional period that the Kingdom is going through as everywhere in the world.
National and international experts discussed various topical issues related to the epidemiological situation in Morocco and around the world, anti-Covid-19 vaccination, or anti-influenza vaccinations.
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