DODOMA, Tanzania (AP) – The Tanzanian health ministry says it has no plans to accept COVID-19 vaccines, just days after the president of the country of 60 million people expressed doubts about the vaccines without providing evidence.
Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima said at a news conference in the capital, Dodoma, on Monday that “the ministry has no plans to receive vaccines for COVID-19”. All vaccines must receive approval from the ministry. It is not clear when vaccines can arrive, although Tanzania is eligible for the global COVAX effort to distribute doses to low- and middle-income countries.
The health minister insisted that Tanzania is safe. During a presentation in which she and others did not wear masks, she encouraged the public to improve hygiene practices, including the use of disinfectants, but also the inhalation of steam – which was rejected by health experts elsewhere as a way to kill the coronavirus.
The government’s chief chemist, Fidelice Mafumiko, also suggested using herbal medicines to cure COVID-19, without providing evidence.
The Tanzanian government has been widely criticized for its approach to the pandemic. It has not updated its number of coronavirus infections – 509 – since April.
The head of the World Health Organization for Africa last week urged Tanzania to share its data on infections, while the director of the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that “if we don’t fight as a collective on the continent, we will be doomed” .
President John Magufuli, who has long claimed that God eliminated COVID-19 in Tanzania, said last week that vaccines for him are “inadequate” even when the first significant deliveries of vaccines begin to arrive on the African continent.
But officials in Tanzania, from the Catholic Church to government institutions, are stepping back and telling 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, opposition party leader ACT Wazalendo announced that party leader Seif Sharif Hamad, vice president of the semi-autonomous island region of Zanzibar, was being treated for COVID-19.
The United States’ Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in its latest travel notice in Tanzania, says the country’s COVID-19 level is “too high”. It did not give details, but urged against all travel to the United Nations. East Africa.
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