LOL! Tanzanian President Magufuli Orders Probe On COVID-19 Kits After Goat & Pawpaw Test Positive For Coronavirus

Tanzanian president, John Magufuli on Sunday ordered a probe on the country’s coronavirus testing kits after samples taken from a goat and pawpaw tested positive.

Speaking at an event in Chato in the northwest of Tanzania, Magufuli said the COVID-19 testing kits which had been imported from abroad had “technical errors”.

The president said he had instructed Tanzanian security forces to check the quality of the kits, who then randomly obtained several non-human samples, including from a pawpaw, a goat, and a sheep, but had assigned them human names and ages.

According to him, these samples were then submitted to Tanzania’s laboratory to test for the coronavirus, with the lab technicians left deliberately unaware of their origins.

President Magufuli later disclosed that samples from the pawpaw and the goat tested positive for COVID-19, adding it was likely that some people were being tested positive when in fact they were not infected by the Coronavirus.

“We extracted a sample from a goat which turned positive. This tells you that something is not adding up,” he stated.

“Are we now supposed to quarantine goats and fruits?” President Magufuli questioned.

FMN Donate 36,000 Covid-19 Test Kits, 75 Ventilators & 331,000 PPEs To NCDC

Mr John Coumantaros, Chairman of the Flour Mills of Nigeria Group (FMN Group) has donated a $1.5 million worth of ventilators and other essential personal protective equipment and testing kits to the Federal Government.

Coumantaros, an industrialist and known philanthropist said that the first batch of the supplies, sourced through FMN’s global supply chain, focused on the most essential needs of the government at the moment, had arrived.

A statement issued on Wednesday in Abuja by the Group’s Chief Operating Officer, Boye Olusanya, said that the supplies which will continue to arrive until March 31, will beef up Nigeria’s fight against COVID-19.

Olusanya said that the supplies were an additional contribution by FMN through its Chairman, Coumantaros. The Group had also redeemed an initial One Billion Naira pledge to the Federal Government of Nigeria. He noted that despite procurement restrictions on supplies by several countries to ensure their frontline responders had sufficient supplies, FMN through its global supply chain network ensured that it sourced and procured the critical supplies for Nigeria.

He added that some of the items on the first batch include ventilators, protective equipment and testing kits, assuring that all the supply would have arrived and handed over by April end.

“FMN initiated a global supply chain plan to help provide the Nigerian Government with tangible, and tactical support during the global economic lockdown.

“This initiative led by the philanthropic Industrialist John Coumantaros, Chairman of the FMN Group, involved the leadership of the NCDC, Ministry of Finance, vendors from 5 Nations, multiple logistics partners, and a team drawn from the FMN group’s operational leadership.

“The team scaled through varying national restrictions on medical supply procurement, limited stock, transport restrictions, but stayed resolute in the race to help Nigeria manage and flatten the curve.

“The medical supplies will facilitate 100 per day field-testing capacity and 35,000 laboratory-based testing capacity.

The supplies included: 331,000 pieces of PPE (N95 Masks, Coveralls, Protective gloves, Protective eyewear) enough to provide regular use for 10,000 Nigerian health care professionals over two months.

“There are also 75 Ventilators. These supplies will be delivered to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to ramp up the capacity in Nigeria,” he said,

He said that the medical supplies procured from Dubai, United States, Canada, Greece and China have started arriving Nigeria from April 18, through to April 27.