Morocco Shifts to Home Quarantine for COVID-19 Contact Cases

This decision was made by the health authorities due to the increase in contact cases that Morocco is currently facing, reports Le360. As a result, the Ministry of Health has decided to replace quarantine in a dedicated structure with mandatory separation and continuous medical supervision by a team assigned to the quarantine structure with home isolation quarantine.

In a circular published on July 6, 2020 and addressed to the President of the National Council of the Order of Physicians, the Ministry of Health recalled the criteria for recognizing contact cases. According to the member of the government, quarantine should take place as soon as any person who has had contact with a probable or confirmed case of Covid-19 within a period ranging from 48 hours before the onset of symptoms, in the suspected or confirmed case and until his isolation.

The person concerned will have to be placed in home quarantine for a follow-up and isolation period of 14 days, from the date of the last contact with the Covid-19 case, the government document states. The ministry explains that contact subjects must be monitored daily, by telephone or home visit if necessary, in order to look for any clinical signs suggestive of the disease.

The kingdom also ensures that it will, as usual since the start of the pandemic, screen the contact on the first day of its identification and thereafter. According to this circular, another screening test will be performed 7 days later. As for asymptomatic contact cases whose test was negative, they will still have to complete the 14-day isolation period with monitoring and compliance with hygiene measures.