Reported by
Faridah N Kulumba
Africa-Press – Tanzania. At the beginning of this week, the new Tanzania’s President Samia Hassan , indicated that her administration will adopt science-based Covid-19 policy to battle Covid-19.
Unlike her predecessor John Pombe Magufuli who was sceptical about Covid-19, president Samia who was Magufuli’s Vice President, promised to form a special committee of public health and medical experts to advise the government on Covid-19 response.
According to the Alliance for Science article, Ms Hassan indicated that her government would take a global perspective in dealing with the pandemic and rely on research findings from the task force.
“On the issue of Covid-19, I intend to form an expert committee to look at the issue deeply. They will need to look at remedies that we have been told would help. The team of experts should look at all aspects of the disease widely then advise us as the government,” said President Samia.
Covid-19 during Magufuli’s administration
For much of the pandemic, President Magufuli denied the seriousness of the pandemic, by declaring Tanzania coronavirus free a few months after they received the first coronavirus case in 2020.
Magufuli stopped his government from releasing any figures of Coronavirus data such as case numbers and deaths saying it was fuelling public panic. He claimed that he sent fake Covid-19 samples to the labs from goats and fruits and some of them came out positive.
The Magufuli government’s stance made Tanzanians believe that Covid-19 is a trivial condition, leading them to delay going to hospital, as they believed it could be treated easily with local herbs.
Many Tanzanians read about Covid-19 worldwide, but they do not seem to know what exactly is happening due to misconceptions.
But why deviate from Magufuli’s policy?
The first Tanzania female president Samia while at ministers inauguration ceremony in Dar es Salaam assured Tanzanians that she would continue to implement Magufuli’s vision for the country’s development, indicating that she would do so while simultaneously charting a more pragmatic course.
Samia said that they cannot separate themselves from other countries like an island and they cannot accept everything that is brought in without conducting their own local research to have an authoritative take on the subject.
“It is not right to keep quiet about it, either to accept without experts conducting research and analysing it. We will allow the experts to tell us what their independent thoughts of the issues are, and also tell us what our local experts are saying. We will do that on Covid issue,” Samia said.
She emphasised that Tanzania needs to take a position supported with scientific evidence and not blindly reject or accept whatever is propagated by outsiders.
Dr Mark Ssenga a researcher at Joint Clinic Research Centre Uganda told Africa-Press that President Samia’s plan of involving experts in combating Covid-19 will definitely change Tanzanians attitude towards the pandemic, due to the fact that they believe in her leadership.
“They will definitely limit the spread, because it has worked in other countries,” said Dr Ssenyonga.
Tanzania’s Covid-19 current situation
According to Godbless Charles, a researcher with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania is facing a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. But the challenge is there is no official epidemiological data to tell whether transmission is ongoing, stopped or is low or high.
