Diphtheria: parents’ groups urge preventive action in Moroccan schools
After diphtheria deaths in Ksar El Kebir and Salé, Morocco’s national parents’ federations call for vaccination checks and health monitoring in schools.
Photo: United Arab Emirates News Agency
Parents’ associations in Morocco are pressing for stronger health monitoring and earlier intervention in schools after diphtheria killed a 12-year-old boy in the north on Tuesday, a death that follows the loss of two children in Salé.
The boy, from Ksar El Kebir, died in the early hours of Tuesday at the Lalla Meryem provincial hospital in Larache, where he had spent several days in intensive care. He had not been vaccinated against the disease. It is the first diphtheria death recorded in the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, where hospitals have confirmed four cases in total; the other three patients were treated and sent home.
In Salé, two unvaccinated children from the same family died of the disease in the Sidi Abdellah area of the Layayda district. Health teams traced and vaccinated more than 40 direct contacts and set up isolation units at the Moulay Abdellah provincial hospital and the Tabriquet proximity hospital. The situation there has been described as under control.
Saïd Kchani, president of the National Confederation of Associations of Mothers, Fathers and Guardians of Pupils, said vaccination campaigns in the north were moving in a positive direction. He acknowledged, though, that the drive had started late and slowly this year, and that not all parents’ associations had grasped the need for preventive action.
Nour Eddine Akouri, president of the National Federation of Associations of Parents and Guardians of Pupils in Morocco, urged families to make sure their children’s vaccinations are complete and called for urgent coordination between the health and education sectors.
“The school must remain a safe space for learning, and we should not wait for infections to spread before acting on the ground,” Akouri said.
Diphtheria had not been recorded in Morocco since 1992 before re-emerging this year, with two family clusters detected in late September in the Souss-Massa region. The national immunisation programme provides doses at two, three and four months, with boosters at 18 months and five years.
