On August 20, 2020, Moroccan citizens awoke to the news that their Ministry of Health and the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm's subsidiary China National Biotech Group had signed a memorandum of understanding for clinical trials of its anti-COVID vaccine on 600 volunteers. The agreement also grants the country privileged access to the vaccine after the successful completion of phase-3 trials. This development offered the first glimmer of hope for a way out of the crisis in a country that has been severely hit by the pandemic, which has claimed more than 8,000 lives, while its GDP shrank by 6.6 percent.