DODOMA, Tanzania (AP) – Tanzania’s health ministry says it has no plans to accept COVID-19 vaccines, just days after the country’s president, of 60 million people, expressed doubts about the vaccines without offering evidence.
Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima told a news conference in the capital, Dodoma, on Monday that “the ministry has no plans to receive vaccines against COVID-19.” Any vaccine must be approved by the ministry. It is unclear when any vaccine may arrive, although Tanzania is eligible for the global COVAX effort aimed at administering doses to low- and middle-income countries.
The Minister of Health insisted that Tanzania is safe. During a presentation in which she and others did not wear face masks, she encouraged the audience to improve hygiene practices, including the use of disinfectants, but also steam inhalation, which has been ruled out by health experts elsewhere. as a way to kill the coronavirus.
Government chief chemist Fidelice Mafumiko also suggested the use of herbal medicines to cure COVID-19, without offering evidence.
The Tanzanian government has been heavily criticized for its approach to the pandemic. It has not updated the number of coronavirus infections since April (509).
Last week, the African head of the World Health Organization urged Tanzania to share its data on infections, while the director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “if not we fight this as a collective on the continent, we will be doomed. “
President John Magufuli, who has long claimed that God has eliminated COVID-19 in Tanzania, last week said vaccines against him are “inadequate,” even as the first major deliveries of vaccines on the African continent.
But Tanzanian authorities, from the Catholic Church to government institutions, step back and tell the public and employees that COVID-19 exists. in the country and precautions must be taken.
Although it is difficult to assess the level of virus infections in Tanzania, this week the main opposition party ACT Wazalendo announced that the party’s leader, Seif Sharif Hamad, vice president of the semi-autonomous region of the island of Zanzibar, was being treated for COVID-19.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its latest travel notice on Tanzania says the country’s COVID-19 level is “very high.” He gave no details, but urged all travel to the East African nation.
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