Tanzanian president, John Magufuli has ordered a probe into the country’s COVID-19 testing kits after samples taken from a goat, and pawpaw came in positive.
President Magufuli and his government have come under heavy criticism in Tanzania for being secretive about the country’s actual coronavirus numbers.
Speaking at an event in Chato in the northwest of Tanzania, Magufuli described the testing kits as faulty although he did not give further details.
According to him, he had instructed Tanzanian security forces to check the quality of the kits which had been imported from an unnamed country.
The security forces, then randomly obtained several non-human samples, from a pawpaw, a goat, and a sheep, but had them assigned human names and ages.
The samples were subsequently sent to Tanzania’s laboratory to be tested for the coronavirus, with the lab technicians kept in the dark about the origins of the samples.
After days of waiting, test results proved that samples from the pawpaw and the goat tested positive for COVID-19 when in fact that wasn’t the case.
“We extracted a sample from a goat which turned positive. This tells you that something is not adding up,” President Magufuli said.
“Are we now supposed to quarantine goats and fruits?” he questioned.
President Magufuli later disclosed that it was likely some people had been classified positive when in fact they were not infected by the Coronavirus and ordered an investigation into the kits.
Source: ABCNewsgh.com
