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Africa News for Sunday May 3, 2020
Source: reuters.com
2020-05-03
John Magufuli, President of Tanzania
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The coronavirus test kits used in Tanzania were ruled out as defective by President John Magufuli on Sunday, because he said they had yielded positive results on samples taken from a goat and a papaya.
Magufuli, whose government has already come under fire for being secretive about the coronavirus outbreak and previously asked Tanzanians to pray for the coronavirus, said the kits had “technical errors.”
The COVID-19 test kits had been imported from abroad, Magufuli said during an event in Chato in northwest Tanzania, but did not elaborate.
The president said he had instructed the Tanzanian security forces to verify the quality of the kits. They had randomly obtained several non-human samples, including a papaya, a goat, and a sheep, but had been assigned names and human ages.
These samples were then sent to the Tanzanian laboratory to analyze the coronavirus, and the laboratory technicians deliberately left their origins unknown.
The papaya and goat samples tested positive for COVID-19, the president said, adding that this meant that some people were likely testing positive when they were not actually infected with the coronavirus.
“Something is happening. I said earlier that we should not accept that all aid is intended to be good for this nation, “said Magufuli, adding that the kits should be investigated.
As of Sunday, Tanzania had recorded 480 COVID-19 cases and 17 deaths, but unlike most other African countries, Dar es Salaam sometimes goes days without offering updates, with the latest case bulletin on Wednesday.
Reported COVID-19 infections and deaths in Africa have been relatively low compared to the United States, parts of Asia, and Europe. But Africa also has extremely low levels of testing, with rates of only around 500 per million people.
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