…Blames the sharp rise of coronavirus cases on faulty testing kits
President John Magufuli of Tanzania has stated that pawpaw, a goat and a quail tested positive to coronavirus in the country, Daily Monitor reports.
He said this was after he secretly had a variety of animals, fruits and vehicle oil tested at the national laboratory.
In a month, Tanzania went from only 20 coronavirus cases to 480, an alarming increase which puts the country with the highest number of cases in East Africa.
But the president believes the number may be exaggerated due to technical hiccups with the imported testing kits.
Magufuli, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, said the testers had randomly obtained several non-human samples on animals and fruits which included a sheep, a goat and a pawpaw and the results came out positive.
The samples were given human names and ages and were submitted to the country’s National Referral Laboratory to test for coronavirus without the lab technicians knowing the true identity of the samples.
The president who said this while questioning Tanzania’s coronavirus cases, called on the authorities to investigate “sabotage” at the national laboratory. According to him, people who tested positive to the virus may not be sick.
He cast doubt on the credibility of laboratory equipment and technicians. He said: “The equipment or people may be compromised and sometimes it can be sabotage…”
Reacting to the fruit and animals that tested positive to coronavirus, President Magufuli said: “That means there is a possibility for technical errors or these imported reagents have issues. Probably, the technicians are also bought to mislead.”
