"These are not laboratory devices or other laboratory kits and tests," said the ministry's director of epidemiology and disease control, Mohamed El Youbi, in an interview with MAP in response to information broadcast by Moroccan websites and social networks.

 "We can't acquire 100,000 laboratory devices in one go. But we are following the logic of acquiring rapid diagnostic tests in sufficient quantities," he said.

 Morocco, he added, is in the process of diversifying its laboratory techniques to cover the rest of the epidemic period in terms of laboratory confirmation of diagnoses. The objective, according to him, is to extend the offer of diagnosis to the most remote areas, so as to no longer systematically use national reference laboratories or laboratories in university hospitals.

 He noted in this regard that diagnostic tests are not only carried out by the laboratories of the national Institute of hygiene, the Pasteur Institute or military hospitals, but also by the laboratories of the university hospital Centres, which start to carry out such tests.

 At the same time, "we are in the process of acquiring other, simpler diagnostic techniques that would provide results as reliable as those from laboratories using a technique called PCM," he explained.