The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached Western Sahara in April 2020.
The released data from the Moroccan government excludes cases in territory controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.
[6][4] On 4 April, the first four cases were confirmed in Boujdour by the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
According to a source from the Moroccan foreign ministry, the decision was made in due to "the principle of reciprocity to host the Catalan independence leader" after Sahrawi President Brahim Ghali was allowed to go to Spain to get treated for COVID-19.