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Niger: labour minister dies from COVID-19

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The novel coronavirus caused the death of Niger’s minister of employment and labour, Mohamed Ben Omar, public television announced Monday. The minister’s Social Democratic Party ( PSD ) reported Ben Omar, 55, had died on Sunday at the main hospital in the capital Niamey but did not list the cause. “Alas, it is this terrible disease which took the life of minister Mohamed Ben Omar,” public television Tele Sahel reported. Before announcing the news, the channel broadcast a recent message from the minister urging workers to protect themselves from the coronavirus. “COVID-19 is a reality, it’s not a state of mind. It’s deadly. It kills. It spreads at the speed of light,” Mohamed Ben Omar told the station. “We must get a grip of ourselves in order to say ‘stop this virus.’ It is discipline alone that will be the weapon to destroy this virus,” he said. President Mahamadou Issoufou said earlier he had learned the news of his death with a “heavy heart”. Ben Omar, born January 1, 19...
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President questions Tanzania coronavirus kits after pawpaw sample test positive.

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President John Pombe Magufuli in a past event. Coronavirus test kits used in Tanzania were dismissed as faulty by President John Magufuli on Sunday, because he said they had returned positive results on samples taken from a goat and a pawpaw. Magufuli, whose government has already drawn criticism for being secretive about the coronavirus outbreak and has previously asked Tanzanians to pray the coronavirus away, said the kits had “technical errors”. The COVID-19 testing kits had been imported from abroad, Magufuli said during an event in Chato in the north west of Tanzania, although he did not give further details. The president said he had instructed Tanzanian security forces to check the quality of the kits. They had randomly obtained several non-human samples, including from a pawpaw, a goat and a sheep, but had assigned them human names and ages. These samples were then submitted to Tanzania’s laboratory to test for the coronavirus, with the lab technicians left delibera...
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