Magufuli, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, said the testers had randomly obtained several non-human samples on animals and fruits which included a sheep, a goat and a pawpaw and the results came out positive. The samples were given human names and ages and were submitted to the country’s National Referral Laboratory to test for coronavirus without the lab technicians knowing the true identity of the samples.

This prompted Magufuli to believe some people who were tested positive for Covid-19 might not have contracted the novel virus after all. “I have always raised my suspicions about how our national lab has been conducting the Covid-19 cases,” he said at an event in Chato in northern-western Tanzania.