Tanzania pledges to release Covid-19 numbers weekly
Wednesday October 06 2021
Tanzanian Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima briefs the media at Afya House in Kenya's capital Nairobi on August 5, 2021. PHOTO | NMG
Tanzania has announced that it will publish Covid-19 statistics on a weekly basis.
Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima told journalists in Dar es Salaam that the weekly release of Covid-19 numbers is a confirmation that the virus is a public health concern in the country.
Tanzania submitted its last report on the virus to the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 3, 2021, when the country indicated there were 25,846 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 719 deaths.
But increasingly, the country has come under pressure to publish data on the spread of coronavirus as part of conditional approval of a $574 million emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Previously, the government of late president John Magufuli, in which Dr Gwajima served as Health Minister, denied the presence of Covid-19 in the country.
Dr Gwajima said Covid-19 data is now available as per WHO requirements.
The country's Covid-19 data will not be announced in press conferences, but will be published online on the WHO website.
“It is not possible to conduct a press conference every day to brief reporters. Through the WHO website, we update the statistics weekly for everyone to access,” the minister said.
She urged the public to to adhere to recommended coronavirus prevention measures, and to get vaccinated to avoid suffering from severe forms of the disease or death.
As of October 2, a total of 595,938 vaccine doses had been administered to Tanzanians. The government is expecting to receive 489,042 doses of Sinopharm vaccine from China to arrive in the country on Friday.
Dr Gwajima said that another consignment of 576,558 doses is expected this month from the Covax facility.
Tanzania launched mass vaccinations in late July after receiving slightly over a million doses of Johnson and Johnson jabs donated by the US.
President Samia Suluhu kicked off the exercise by publicly receiving her first jab, signalling a turnaround for a country that only months before was in denial about the pandemic.