Morocco Revokes COVID-19 Testing Licenses from Five Labs amid Compliance Concerns

This decision, which does not enjoy unanimous support among biologists, came following an inspection by the Ministry of Health, reports La Vie Eco. According to these biologists, to obtain this license, it takes an average of 1 million DH to invest in renting a building that can house the headquarters, purchasing equipment, and recruiting qualified personnel to perform these tests.

They do not approve of the withdrawal of the authorization, which is taking place in the midst of a rise in new infections. For these biotechnology specialists, this period calls for the performance of a greater number of tests and therefore of laboratories to carry them out.

According to Zineb Zniber, president of the Council of Pharmacist Biologists, membership in this network requires sufficient space to set up three distinct technical rooms dedicated to analysis and separated from the rest of the laboratory. "It will have to acquire the equipment of the PCR platform, the reagents and consumables. Then, make a request to the Ministry of Health. After checking all these standards, the ministry issues the authorization," she added.

To date, Morocco has about thirty authorized laboratories based on the specifications established by the supervisory ministry. It sets the requirements for performing the Covid-19 diagnosis by qRT Pcr. It costs 680 DH in a private laboratory.