Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli has said the testing kits being used to test for COVID-19 could be fake and could as well be inflating the number of cases being reported in the country.
In a video, President Magufuli, says he he had instructed Tanzanian security forces to check the quality of the kits that had been imported from abroad.
He said they had randomly obtained several non-human samples, including from a pawpaw, a goat and a sheep, but had assigned them human names and ages.
These samples were then submitted to Tanzania’s laboratory to test for the coronavirus, with the lab technicians left deliberately unaware of their origins.
Samples from the pawpaw and the goat tested positive for COVID-19, he said, adding this meant it was likely that some people were being tested positive when in fact they were not infected by the coronavirus.
“There is something happening. I said before we should not accept that every aid is meant to be good for this nation,” Mr Magufuli is quoted in the video as saying, adding the kits should be investigated.
Some of the test kits were donated by Chinese businessman Jack Ma while others were imported from abroad.
Magufuli, a chemist has previously asked Tanzanians to just pray to God to save them from the Coronavirus.
Tanzania registered its first Covid-19 cases on March 16. Since then, the number of confirmed cases has risen to 480. Out of the number, 167 have recovered, while 18 have died.
Tanzania president Magufuli says some of the testing kits donated to Africa are fake. He says animal, bird and fruit samples secretly sent to the National lab returned positive for the coronavirus – including a bird, a goat and pawpaw. pic.twitter.com/Ze9e0MKODw
— Ahmed Mohamed ((ASMALi)) (@Asmali77) May 3, 2020
https://twitter.com/i/status/1256539004520009729
