Scientist, fired by Magufuli, reinstated as national lab director

Dar es Salaam. Dr Nyambura Moremi, who was sacked in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, has been reappointed as the director of Tanzania’s National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL).

Dr Moremi is one of Tanzania’s most respected clinical microbiologists, researchers, and infectious disease specialists.

She returns to the position she was removed from on May 4, 2020, by Health minister Ummy Mwalimu after then-President John Magufuli questioned the accuracy of some of the tests from the national laboratory.

In his speech on May 3, 2020, President Magufuli said his agents had secretly sent samples from animals, fruit and engine oil to the laboratory, and they all tested positive for the Corona virus.

He concluded that the false-positive test results of samples taken from a papaya, a bird and a goat that were labelled as human samples proved that the national lab was not credible.

Casting doubt on the credibility of laboratory equipment and scientists at NPHL, Magufuli rejected official data on the pandemic, Tanzania eventually stopped releasing the data on the pandemic.

By that point, 480 people had tested positive for Covid-19 which was first confirmed in March 2020 in Tanzania.

“The equipment or personnel may be compromised and this could be an act of sabotage,” said Dr Magufuli in a speech, insisting that only prayers and traditional remedies would protect Tanzania from the pandemic.

“The findings so far show that something is wrong somewhere,” added the President.

Announcing her sacking on May 4, the minister for Health Ms Mwalimu, said in a statement that Nyambura and the laboratory’s quality assurance manager, Mr Jacob Lusekelo, had been immediately suspended “to pave the way for an investigation.” As part of the measures, the minister has also named a 10-man special committee headed by Prof Eligius Lyamuya to investigate the collection of Covid-19 samples at the laboratory.

The committee, which comprised six university dons and three laboratory experts, was supposed to present its findings within 10 days.

The committee’s members are Prof Said Aboud, Prof Gabriel Shirima, Prof Steven Mshana, Prof Rudovick Kazwala, Dr Thomas Marandu, Dr Mabula Kasubi, Dr Danstan Hipolite, Ms Viola Msangi and Mr Jaffer Sufi.

In her statement, the minister said that despite the investigations, testing of Covid-19 samples will continue at the laboratory.

The findings of the committee’s investigations, which were supposed to take 10 days, were never made public, but at that point, Tanzania abandoned several measures that were in place to combat the virus, such as mask-wearing and gatherings. According to insiders, it is probable that the investigations never found anything against the researcher and that is why she has been re-appointed by the same authority that controversially sacked her.