CHATO, Tanzania
Tanzanian President John Magufuli has claimed that vaccinations against COVID-19 are dangerous and instead urged Tanzanians to protect themselves from the deadly disease by using domestic measures including steam inhalation.
Speaking during the launch of
a public forest in Chato, Geita Region, Magufuli said any decision to adopt
Covid-19 vaccinations should not be taken lightly.
He has long downplayed the seriousness of
COVID-19, which has killed more than 2.1 million people worldwide.
He previously questioned the efficacy of imported
COVID tests and urged people to pray to protect themselves from the
coronavirus.
The president has resisted imposing strict
lockdowns to contain the virus and his government has faced criticism over its
secrecy regarding the outbreak in the East African nation, which has not
published official COVID-19 statistics since April 2020.
“Vaccinations are dangerous. If white people
were able to come up with vaccinations, a vaccination for HIV-AIDS would have
been found, a vaccination for tuberculosis could have eliminated it by now; a
Malaria vaccine would have been found; a vaccination for cancer would have been
found by now,” Magufuli said in a speech on Wednesday in his hometown of Chato,
northwest Tanzania.
Magufuli said he was aware
that some Tanzanians had gone out of the country where they received
coronavirus vaccinations, which, he added, had simply introduced a “dangerous
virus” into their bodies urging the health ministry to be cautious with vaccines developed
abroad.
The president offered no evidence to support
his doubts about the safety of vaccinations, which are being administered
across more than 50 countries, according to Our
World in Data, after securing regulatory approval.
A microbiologist who requested anonymity citing
fear of government retaliation described the president’s statement as
“dangerous” and said could help to reverse the country’s decades-long effort to
eradicate preventable illnesses through vaccines.
“The fight against COVID-19 needs informed
public health measures. Denial, misinformation and inaction only puts Tanzanian
citizens, especially the vulnerable ones, at unnecessary risk of serious
illness or death from COVID-19,” the scientist told our reporter.
Magufuli’s warning comes a day after the
Tanzania Catholic Church issued an alert over a surge in suspected COVID-19
infections in the country.
In a letter addressed to church leaders, the
president of the episcopal conference (TEC) warned of a possible new wave of
infections.
The TEC Secretary Father Charles Kitima told
the media that the Catholic Church had noticed an unusually sharp increase in
the number of funeral services being held.
He said
that usually, there would be one or two requiem masses per week in urban
parishes, but that now they were conducting the masses daily.
Since the apparent resurgence of cases in
recent weeks, Magufuli has sent mixed messages to the public, at times urging
people to follow expert advice but also mocking those who wear masks to slow
the spread of the virus.
Despite anecdotal evidence suggesting a
potential resurgence of infections, there are no official figures to indicate
how widespread it might be, as the health ministry stopped releasing regular
updates on COVID statistics last April.
Tanzania has reported 509 COVID-19 infections
and 21 deaths in total, according to World Health Organization data. -
Africa
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