Tanzania lays down research priorities for Covid-19

Dar es Salaam. The government yesterday outlined nine research priorities in the fight against Covid-19 amid mounting questions over which approach traditional or scientific the country should embrace to stem the tide of the rapidly spreading deadly coronavirus.
The development came a day after Tanzania received a consignment of herbal remedy from Madagascar, which President John Magufuli had promised to secure for ‘treatment’ of Covid-19.
Apparently, there is a high interest from the public over the use of the Madagascar traditional medicine to tackle the deadly coronavirus.
However, speaking yes terday at a news conference in Dar es Salaam, the  Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation minister, Prof Palamagamba Kabudi, who led a team to Madagascar to collect the herbal medicine, said the purported treatment was brought purposely for research, analysis and reference by Tanzanian experts.
“I would like to make this clear to citizens that I haven’t come with the medicine for distribution. Nothing has been brought for administration. The consignment intends to meet research and analysis purposes,” he said.
The move comes at a time when the World Health Organisation (WHO) had expressed concern after some African countries opted to use herbal medicines, which have not been proven scientifically to treat the novel coronavirus.
WHO said: “Africans deserve to use medicines tested to the same standards as people in the rest of the world. Even if therapies are derived from traditional practice, establishing their efficacy and safety through rigorous clinical trials is critical.”
Tanzania has been in the spotlight over the tactics the government was employing to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. In the latest move, the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday sought to ease concerns by Tanzania that the country’s coronavirus test kits were faulty.
This comes after the government suspended top officials at the National Health Laboratory after President John Magufuli revealed that state agents secretly had animals and fruits tested — and a goat, a quail and pawpaw were tested positive of the virus. The president doubted the credibility of the laboratory equipment, technicians and questioned official data on the epidemic.
However, the Africa CDC director, Mr John Nkengasong, later spoke to journalists saying: “The tests that Tanzania and all African countries are using have been validated and we know that they are performing well.”
The World Health Organisation also expressed confidence in the tests.
Commenting on the matter, the National Coordinator for Covid-19 Response, Dr Tumaini Haonga, said it was too early to react on CDC and WHO assertion until a committee formed to investigate the laboratory comes out with findings.
“The formed committee should be given time to execute its duties and come up with a report on what the two global bodies say,’’ said Dr Haonga.
“As a scientist, I am restricted to speak in the absence of valid and trusted scientific evidence after thorough investigation,’’ he said.
Against this backdrop, some heads of key health institutions in the country accompanied Prof Kabudi  at yesterday’s press conference in Dar es Salaam, organised by the Tanzania delegation that went to Madagascar on Friday to collect the herbal medicine. They outlined research priorities that Tanzania had planned, such as researching on traditional herbs, including further trials of the of the Artemisia plant that was used to make Madagascar’s Covid-Organic (CVO).
The director General of the National Institute of Medical Research (Nimr), Prof Yunus Mgaya, said studies would be conducted on why people with Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) were at higher risk of contracting the Covid-19.
Prof Mgaya said Nimr would further research on people’s knowledge, attitude and practices on the Covid-19. He said Nimr had already been tasked to identify uncommon Covid-19 symptoms.
 “We will conduct epidemiological studies which will be helpful to healthcare providers who attend to Covid-19 patients,” he said.
 According to him, people with NCDs and HIV/AIDs including diabetes, pressure, heart diseases and cancer whose immunity is low were dying at an alarming rate after contracting Covid-19.
“Our research aims at establishing this relationship. Also, we are researching to determine how mathematical modelling could be used to predict Covid-19 behaviour,” he said.
He said researches that were at different levels of implementation aimed at providing solutions and answers to problems and questions recorded in connection with the disease.
Speaking at the same event, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Prof Abel Makubi, said research on herbal medicine would involve establishing its safety and quality.
“The country’s policy wants us to carry out clinical trials on donated medicines before using them. We will carry out clinical trials on three voluntary groups of patients who will be provided with the medicine currently used for treating Covid-19,” he said.
He added: “The first group will not be given additional medicine. The second group will be additionally provided with the CVO while the third group will be given a medicine discovered by NIMR.
Findings from the three groups will be used in the comparative analysis and advise the government on making the right decisions.”
According to him, the country was also following up an antiviral, Remdesivir, that has shown positive results in the US.
The Chief Government Chemist (CGC), Dr Fidelice Mafumiko, said his office would carry out microbiological and chemical tests in order to establish the safety of all herbal medicines.
“We will carry out tests to discover whether samples contained have harmful bacteria, fungus or pesticide residue of heavy metals such as mercury, lead,” he said.
He said generally, the medicine’s composition will be put on scrutiny to establish its treatment behaviour as compared to available references and then communicate with NIMR.
For his part, the head of traditional medicine and alternative treatment department at the ministry of Heath, Dr Paul Mhame, called on traditional healers to submit medicines they believe could prevent or treat Covid-19 for further scientific research.
He asked traditional medicine and alternative treatment coordinators in the districts and regions to properly supervise the directives, noting that strengthened research could free the country from Covid-19 and other diseases.