Fri 12 March 2021:
Tanzania’s main opposition leader said on Thursday that President John Magufuli, who has not been seen in public for nearly two weeks, is in India receiving medical treatment for the virus and is in a serious condition.
Tanzanian government spokesmen have stayed mum during days of speculation over the 61-year-old Magufuli’s whereabouts and health.
Kenya’s Nation newspaper cited unidentified political and diplomatic sources on Wednesday saying that an African leader, which it did not name, was being treated for COVID-19 on a ventilator at a Nairobi hospital.
Magufuli has played down the threat from COVID-19, saying God and remedies such as steam inhalation would protect Tanzanians. He has mocked coronavirus tests, denounced vaccines as part of a Western conspiracy to take Africa’s wealth, and opposed mask-wearing and social distancing.
Tanzania stopped reporting coronavirus data in May last year when it said it had 509 cases and 21 deaths, according to data held at the WHO. In January, Magufuli said vaccines for the disease were “dangerous”.
“Vaccines are not good. If they were, then the white man would have brought vaccines for HIV/AIDS,” he said earlier this year.
Tundu Lissu, who lost last year’s election to Magufuli, told the news agency Reuters that Magufuli was flown to Kenya’s Nairobi Hospital at the start of this week and then on to an unknown destination in India. “He’s comatose since yesterday morning,” he said, without elaborating.
Kenya’s Nation newspaper cited unidentified political and diplomatic sources on Wednesday saying that an African leader, which it did not name, was being treated for COVID-19 on a ventilator at a Nairobi hospital.
India’s foreign ministry and its high commission in Nairobi had no immediate comment.
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