Five people have fully recovered from Covid-19 in Tanzania, says health minister

Dar es Salaam. Health minister Ummy Mwalimu said yesterday that two more people have recovered from Covid-19 since the outbreak of the virus.

Speaking during an event to receive a donation of protective gear against coronavirus infections from businessman Subhash Patel, the minister said the two who have just recovered are from Dar es Salaam and Arusha.

This brings the total number of patients who are still receiving treatment to 18. A total of 24 Covid-19 cases have so far been confirmed in Tanzania out of whom, one died while five have recovered. Receiving the donation, Ms Mwalimu said out of 1,000 sim tanks for washing hands, 350 will be used in Dar es Salaam and the other 650 will be distributed to different regions across the country. “We have received 1,000 sim tanks from Subhash Patel through the union of local businessmen, who promised the Prime Minister (Kassim Majaliwa) to offer this donation,” she said.

“We are going to distribute the sim tanks to every region and here we’re going to distribute 350 sim tanks while the other 650 will be sent to different regions and we’ll ensure that each region gets 26,” she said. The minister clarified that Dar es Salaam has received more sim tanks because it has the biggest number of open spaces and it is the region that tops the coronavirus infections chart.

The minister also said as of yesterday’s tests, there were no new infections of the deadly virus, but the good news was that two patients recovered.

“We have no new infections and the number of infected people remains at 24 as I announced. Two patients have recovered, one in Dar es Salaam and the other in Arusha and they have both been discharged,” the minister said.

Also, Ms Ummy spoke of Kagera Region, which, she said, had no patient suffering from the Covid-19 disease.

She called upon people not to stigmatize those infected with the disease and made a call to all of them to continue to protect themselves against contracting the disease. “The government is serious about the issue of putting all people who enter the country under quarantine as they will spend the nights at Magufuli’s hostels. Despite the challenges, we promise to address them and no one will be allowed to get out of those hostels,” said Ms Ummy.

“As Tanzanians, we need to avoid unnecessary gatherings and we have to keep distance of one metre every time we meet to avoid new infections.”

“We don’t want to get into a debate about a coronavirus case from outside the country and ask how that person from Dubai entered the country on the date of 14. Its clarification is that we looked at the number of the most affected countries as all people from those countries will now be put under quarantine,” the minister added.