I read in yesterday's FT that 'John Magufuli, Tanzania’s president ... has declared Covid-19 vaccines dangerous and unnecessary. A devout Catholic, he has said God would protect his nation from the disease'. It seems that not all Tanzanians take the same line and some of them even wear masks.
Tanzania is a middle size country of around 60m people, so much the same as ourselves. They also have a National Bureau of Statistics with what looks like a semi-detached outpost in the island of Zanzibar, possibly more sophisticated in such matters than the mainland. But I have failed to find any statistics about deaths by cause, the nearest I could get being the US CDC in Atlanta which tells me that the ten most common causes of death are, starting at the top, neonatal disorders, lower respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, ischemic heart disease, congenital defects, malaria, diarrheal diseases, stroke, and tenth, diabetes - of which just five might appear on a similar list for the UK. I have not been able to find any numbers, so no idea what proportion of the total this accounts for, a total which is presumably of the order of half as much again as us, say 750,000 a year.
There seems to be a news blackout on coronavirus infections and deaths, with the last, very low figures, coming from early last year.
Perhaps, given the common causes of death listed above, the president thinks he has got more important things to worry about.
Which, given that Africans seems to have weathered the coronavirus storm rather better than us up north, may be the case, but there is clearly a worry that without a change in policy, such a place will become a long term breeding ground and reservoir for unwanted viruses. Perhaps the answer will be that we have to pay the president to get going on this one. I dare say there are plenty of worthy things to spend any such money on - perhaps even some more statisticians. Or perhaps some more registrars so that they can get their registers of births, deaths and marriages into better shape than they are at present.
PS 1: the snap above, lifted from the same number of the FT comes with the following caption: 'A choir sings in a Dar es Salaam church without Covid-19 precautions. Tanzania’s president John Magufuli has said God will protect the country from the disease and encouraged people to attend places of worship © AFP/Getty'.
PS 2: Dar es Salaam is on the mainland, more or less opposite the island of Zanzibar, the former capital of Tanzania. Population of the order of 5 million. An Arabic name meaning haven of peace.
Reference 2: https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/countries/tanzania/pdf/Tanzania_Factsheet-h.pdf.
Reference 3: https://www.nbs.go.tz/index.php/en/. The National Bureau of Statistics.
Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/tanzania.html. Some days later, I come across this previous outing for Tanzania. Can't get even essential secretarial support these days - but at least this older post overlaps rather than contradicts.
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