Tanzanian main opposition leader Tundu Lissu on Thursday claimed President John Magufuli is currently in India receiving medical treatment for COVID-19 and is in a serious condition, reported Al Jazeera.
Lissu, who lost last year’s election to Magufuli, cited medical and security sources in Kenya for his information that the president had been transferred from a hospital in Kenya to India and was in a coma. However, he did not provide any evidence to prove his claim.
President Magufuli’s absence from the media and public for the past two weeks fueled rumors that his health was not keeping well.
Earlier this week, the Tanzanian opposition leader demanded that authorities disclose the whereabouts of the president, but there was no information. Mr. Lissu said he had information from his sources that Tanzanian President John Magufuli was flown into Kenya and admitted to a hospital in Nairobi to receive treatment for COVID-19. He claimed that Mr. Magufuli was transferred to a hospital in India on Wednesday to avoid social media embarrassment in case the worst happened in Kenya.
From the beginning of the pandemic a year ago, the 61-year-old Tanzanian president railed against masks and social distancing measures, advocated unproven remedies as cures. He continued to claim that the country had absolutely finished the coronavirus through prayer.
Mr. Magufuli, who is also popularly known as “The Bulldozer,” also questioned the efficacy of vaccines, arguing that if those vaccines produced by “the white man” were effective, AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria would have been eliminated.
Furthermore, the Tanzanian government has not shared data on the coronavirus with the World Health Organization since last April and has reported only 509 cases and 21 deaths from Covid-19. This lack of transparency has been widely condemned, including by the director-general of the W.H.O., Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
