Status: 14.06.2021 1:48 p.m.
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Prayers against Covid-19 – Tanzania’s recently deceased head of state Magufuli thought that was sufficient. His successor Suluhu recognizes the danger. But is it also taking practical measures?
From Stefan Ehlert,
ARD-Studio Nairobi
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The travel and security advice from the Foreign Office continues to say little reassuringly about East African Tanzania. It is an area with a particularly high risk of infection, it says there. However, the Tanzanian government still does not publish any figures. The question is even whether the government is even collecting the number of corona infections.
Stefan Ehlert
ARD-Studio Rabat
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As of May 2020, the country with its 58 million inhabitants has officially registered 509 corona infections and 21 deaths. President John Magufuli, who died in March – possibly also from Covid-19 – ignored the pandemic. He preferred to rely on prayer instead of prevention and rumbled: “Vaccination is unnecessary. If the whites were able to supply us with vaccines, they could have developed a vaccine against HIV-AIDS.”
Tanzania’s President Magufuli ignored the coronavirus …
Image: REUTERS
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In the international fight against the pandemic, Magufuli was sidelined. Unlike the government in the much poorer neighboring country Mozambique, Tanzania did not take any preventive measures: it neither closed schools nor imposed curfews. It was unusual to wear masks yourself.
High hopes for the new president
Magufuli’s successor became his vice-president Samia Suluhu. She is from Zanzibar and has been greeted with high hopes by many people. Just four weeks after Magufuli’s death, Samia Suluhu declared the strategy of doing nothing against Corona to be over: Tanzania could “not seal itself off like an island,” she said. However, she further explained, “your country cannot simply accept everything that is offered to us without our being asked.”
In other words: Tanzania must find its own way to cope with the pandemic without foregoing knowledge and help from abroad.
…. his successor Suluhu takes it more seriously, at least verbally.
Image: REUTERS
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Political scientist Nicodemus Mbinde believes that it was well received by the population. The fact that the president recognizes the existence of Covid-19 in the country is “a very positive step”. For a year Tanzania was “in a state of denial” – now there is “optimism and hope” again.
A drastic change of course
Suluhu set up a commission of experts. The committee’s report was published four weeks ago. It was a bang that shook the whole country: the experts recommended a drastic change of course and 19 concrete steps.
This included that Tanzania should apply for a vaccine to the Covax initiative and finally have to report its figures to the World Health Organization (WHO). This is exactly what the International Monetary Fund has made a condition for an emergency loan of almost half a billion euros.
Not even a poster campaign
What exactly the government has initiated since then is not entirely clear. So far there has not even been a poster campaign to educate the population. Observers in Dar es Salaam say Ms. Suluhu is proceeding very carefully. She doesn’t want to expose her predecessor’s followers or alienate her own party.
But unlike last year, the current budget consultations for the health budget for the coming year are talking about money for combating corona, says Elisabeth Bollrich, office manager of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Dar es Salaam: “The picture has changed significantly, too that of the president in the media. ”
Another occurrence
Suluhu now often appears in public with mouth and nose protection – the gesture is noticed and it is imitated. And her party friend Hussein Mwinyi, the President of Zanzibar, is already publicly promoting the vaccination, which is due to come soon. It is voluntary, no one is forced to do so – “but we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be deceived if someone tells us that whoever gets vaccinated will die,” he emphasizes. “The whole world is vaccinated.”
Only the population in Tanzania does not yet. Along with Chad and Eritrea, it is one of the few countries in Africa where vaccinations have not even started.
Prevention instead of praying away – whether and how Tanzania changes its corona policy
Stefan Ehlert, ARD Rabat, 14.6.2021 · 09:47 Uhr
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