Morocco cancelled all trips to and from Italy
Morocco reports first coronavirus death
89-year-old Moroccan woman, who entered Morocco from Italy's Bologna and was suffering from respiratory and heart diseases, succumbs to deadly virus.
Tuesday 10/03/2020
Morocco cancelled all trips to and from Italy
RABAT - Morocco's health ministry confirmed on Tuesday the country's first death from coronavirus in Casablanca, as its overall number of new infections rose to three.
The dead patient, who entered Morocco from Italy's Bologna, is an 89-year-old Moroccan woman suffering from respiratory and heart diseases, the ministry said in a statement.
Morocco cancelled all trips to and from Italy and banned fans from attending football matches, cancelled events involving foreign travellers and gatherings of more than 1,000 people as precautionary measures to avert an outbreak of the virus.
"Due to coronavirus spread in Italy, government of Morocco decided to suspend all travel to and from Italy until further notice," Prime Minister Saadeddine El Othmani wrote on his twitter account.
Othmani tweeted Wednesday the third case of coronavirus, a French tourist who arrived in Marrakech on Saturday.
The government and the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises set up a joint cell for strategic vigilance to track and monitor closely the potential economic impacts of urgent issues, including the coronavirus and to suggest solutions and measures to address them.
Morocco’s tourism sector is expected to be impacted by the coronavirus outbreak amid increasing hotel and flight cancellations.
According to sources from the Moroccan airline company and the crisis unit at the tourism ministry, the current losses already amount to tens of millions of dirhams and at least one hundred thousand arrivals lost in March.