During his talks with Health Minister Khalid Aït Taleb, Nkengasong highlighted the actions carried out by Morocco with the aim of uniting the efforts of African countries in the fight against the pandemic, welcoming in particular the sharing of experiences and good practices for an effective management of the crisis.

On a working visit to the Kingdom leading a high-level delegation, the head of CDC Africa also mentioned the delivery of aid and the supply of preventive medical equipment to back African countries in their efforts to fight the pandemic, as well as the development of an industrial platform for the manufacture of vaccines and biotechnological products to cover not only the needs of the Kingdom but also those of the African continent, as part of South-South cooperation, said the Ministry of Health in a statement.

During the talks, the two officials reviewed Morocco's "remarkable contribution" to the implementation of the continental strategy to fight the pandemic.

These include training programs in field epidemiology and global health benefiting managers from French-speaking African countries, designed in partnership with the National School of Public Health, as well as the appointment of the Pasteur Institute of Morocco as an African center of excellence for the virological diagnosis of Covid-19 infection and a North African center of excellence for the genomic surveillance of SARS COV-2 variants.

In addition, they cited Morocco's participation in the governance bodies of CDC Africa, the active participation in the coordination and expertise bodies of the continental pandemic response strategy, and the Kingdom's participation, through the Pasteur Institute of Morocco, as a representative of the North African region in the African network for monitoring the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines.

The visit is part of the strengthening of the partnership with Moroccan public health institutions in the prevention and control of epidemics. The members of the delegation will also learn about the Moroccan experience in vaccination campaigns and industrial platforms specialized in the manufacture of biotechnologies, with a view to developing partnership projects for the manufacture of vaccines as well as for the supply of the African continent with biological diagnostic tests and protective medical devices.