After 3 Years of Mocking Animals Catching Covid-19 Virus Popular African News Outlet Reports On Zoonotic Diseases

Friday, 4 August 2023

By: TB Obwoge

Living in Kenya during Covid-19 was very interesting to say the least. I was also in the United States, lockdown and unable to move to Kenya.

The fighting about wearing masks were pretty much the same in Kenya as they were in America. However as every bit of information about the new virus called Covid-19 came out, it was fed to the public.

However many African news outlets, which some are very much censored by the government leaders, refused to report that Covid-19 was a zoonotic viruses. Which made it easy to spread and made it much deadlier than other diseases.

The late president of Tanzania John Magufuli, claimed that his country didn't have Covid-19, he refused any mandates. He refused to close his country, he refused to accept that this virus was deadly and running rampant in Tanzania and the world.

Kenyan reporters were even detained and held in the country for trying to report on Covid-19 in Tanzania.

Meanwhile, hospitals were overrun in the country, there were stories of people being buried in mass graves to hide the amount of death. Eventually he died, many speculate that the 61-year old Magufuli died from Covid-19, which the country labeled as heart failure of some sort.

John Magufuli joked once about hearing pigs had tested positive for Covid-19. This joke reached many of the East African countries, Kenyans proclaimed via social media often that they'd rather be living in Tanzania.

What he was joking about was real and he deep down knew this, he knows that he watched reports about Covid-19. He was much like those Covid conspiracy theorists in the US. He believed that news of the deaths wasn't true, the virus wasn't real and that this was manufactured by the wicket west for some unknown reason.

His mistrust of the west might even be the reason why American citizens have to pay twice as much for a visa to Tanzania than other citizens.

Tanzania's President Blames Fake Positive Tests In The Spike In Coronavirus Cases

Tanzania's president John Magufuli, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, is denying a spike in the country's coronavirus cases, claiming that positive COVID-19 tests are fake.

Tanzania in East Africa seems to be experiencing a big spike in COVID-19 cases. Videos on social media show hurried night burials and people collapsing on the streets. But the government is slow to report cases, and the country's president has become a coronavirus denier. NPR's Eyder Peralta reports.

Source: NPR

This one media outlet which publishes news and news papers in East African countries Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, helped spread the jokes that Magufuli made about Covid-19. Which made many suffering from pandemic lockdown also start to mistrust information on the virus.

Not once mentioning that Covid-19 was a zoonotic virus. Kenyans faced fines just for not wearing masks while walking down the streets without masks.

A zoonosis is an infectious disease that has jumped from a non-human animal to humans. Zoonotic pathogens may be bacterial, viral or parasitic, or may involve unconventional agents and can spread to humans through direct contact or through food, water or the environment.

They represent a major public health problem around the world due to our close relationship with animals in agriculture, as companions and in the natural environment. Zoonoses can also cause disruptions in the production and trade of animal products for food and other uses.

Zoonoses comprise a large percentage of all newly identified infectious diseases as well as many existing ones. Some diseases, such as HIV, begin as a zoonosis but later mutate into human-only strains. Other zoonoses can cause recurring disease outbreaks, such as Ebola virus disease and salmonellosis. Still others, such as the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, have the potential to cause global pandemics.

Source: World Health Organization

There is a page which lists the diseases that fall into the relm of being zoonotic. Rabies is an example of one of those, which is deadly once signs appear.

Better late than never, sadly this could have helped 3 years ago during the pandemic.

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©️TB Obwoge 2023 All Rights Reserved