Goats and cheese test positive for coronavirus in Tanzania

Goats and pawpaw (cheese) have tested postive for the deadly coronavirus in Tanzania.

As a result, the country's President John Magufuli dismissed the testing kits as ''faulty''.

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The COVID-19 testing kits had been imported from abroad, the President said during an event in Chato in the north west of Tanzania, although he did not give further details.

However, he had instructed Tanzanian security forces to check the quality of the kits.

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But they 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 deliberately unaware of their origins.

Samples from the pawpaw and the goat tested positive for COVID-19, the president said, adding this meant it was likely that some people were being tested positive when in fact they were not infected by the coronavirus.

Magufuli had previously asked Tanzanians to pray the coronavirus away, said the kits had ''technical errors''.

His government has already drawn criticism for being secretive about the coronavirus outbreak.