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Tanzania's President Criticized for Dismissing COVID-19 Vaccines

Charles Kombe

   DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA - Tanzanian President John Magufuli's sharp
   rejection of COVID-19 vaccines was met Thursday with criticism, concern
   and confusion.

   Magufuli in a speech Wednesday scorned the idea of a lockdown to
   prevent the coronavirus from spreading and poured doubt on the
   effectiveness of vaccines.

   He claimed that Tanzanians vaccinated abroad had brought a coronavirus
   variant back to the country and repeated his stance that praying and
   inhaling steam offered better protection.

   People should stand firm because vaccinations are dangerous, Magufuli
   said. He contended that if whites were able to come up with
   vaccinations, they would have found a vaccination for AIDS,
   tuberculosis, malaria and cancer by now.

   'Extremely dangerous' remarks

   Tanzanian opposition politicians criticized Magufuli's words as
   undiplomatic and said they sent a poor message to the world.

   Zitto Kabwe, a former member of parliament and a leader of the
   opposition Alliance for Change and Transparency party, said, "Africa is
   struggling because of the limited supply of vaccinations, and here you
   have a president of the second-largest economy in East Africa, and this
   president saying that vaccinations are problematic. This is extremely
   dangerous, and I really don't know how deadly this comment from the
   president will be going forward."

   Tanzania's government stopped reporting cases of COVID-19 in May, when
   it had 509 infections and 21 deaths. Magufuli said there was no need to
   report cases or take precautions against the virus because God had
   protected Tanzania from it.

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