President Magufuli says Test kits imported to Tanzania are faulty after samples from goats and sheep test positive

Tanzanian President, John Pombe Magufuli, revealed during a speech at the swearing-in ceremony of the newly appointed Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Dr Mwigulu Nchemba that, the test kits being used in his country are faulty.

To test the efficiency of the kits, the President secretly instructed the security forces to extract samples from diverse sources, including goats and sheeps. The labels were given human names and submitted to the laboratory operators (who had no idea) for testing.

Most surprisingly, the test results came out positive. “We extracted a sample from a goat which turned positive. This tells you that something is not adding up. Are we now supposed to quarantine goats and fruits?” Magufuli questions.

Tanzania president Magufuli says some of the testing kits donated to Africa are fake. He says animal, bird and fruit samples secretly sent to the National lab returned positive for the coronavirus – including a bird, a goat and pawpaw. pic.twitter.com/Ze9e0MKODw

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He further cautioned against aids they receive from foreigners. “There is something happening. I said before we should not accept that every aid is meant to be good for this nation,” He added.

Although Magufuli failed to mention the source of the test kits, this is a very worrying situation, especially when many African countries are using some of these test kits as yardsticks to measure the number of cases. If Magufuli’s claims are right, African countries must review their test results.