The newly sworn-in Tanzania president Samia Suluhu was spotted wearing a face mask on her first international trip to neighboring country Uganda.
Kivumbi.co.ke understands that Saluhu’s predecessor, the late President John Pombe Magufuli was against the World Health Organization directives of wearing face masks as one of the ways to combat the spread of COVID-19.
According to pictures shared by her Uganda counterpart and host president Yoweri Museveni, Suluhu and her delegation wore face masks for the better part of their visit to State House in Entebe.
Suluhu did not wear a face mask even during her swearing-in ceremony in Tanzania and many believed she had followed in the footsteps of Magufuli.
Interestingly, on her return to Tanzania from meeting Uganda’s president, Suluhu and her entourage were seen without face masks as they disembarked from an Air Tanzania aircraft.
Her predecessors’ stance against anti-covid-19 spread measures was seen by any as retrogressive as the country even never went into any lockdown like many other nations did to arrest the rapid spread of the deadly virus.deadly
In 2020, World Health Organization laid out stringent measures including wearing of facemask, keeping social distance, use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer among others to reduce transmission of the virus which has claimed millions of lives worldwide.
However, Tanzanians have been disregarding these directives on claims that Covid-19 was not as deadly as it was being reported worldwide.
President Samia Suluhu was sworn in after the death of John Pombe Magufuli who died in March 2021 after a short illness becoming the first female head of state in East Africa.
