US advices against travel to Tanzania over Covid-19 risk

Washington has put five countries, including Tanzania, on its red list, advising its citizens against travel to these nations.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has put Tanzania together with France, Portugal, Andorra, Cyprus, Jordan and Lichtenstein under its high risk countries, discouraging American citizens from travelling to these destinations over Covid-19 related risks.

“Avoid travel to Tanzania,” CDC said in its latest notice, adding that, if one must travel to Tanzania, they should make sure they are fully vaccinated before travel.

“Because of the current situation in Tanzania, even fully vaccinated travellers may be at risk for getting and spreading Covid-19 variants,” CDC says.

The alert comes as the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam warned that community transmission of the novel virus continues across Tanzania.

In September, Tanzania started reporting limited aggregated weekly numbers to the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Healthcare facilities in Tanzania can become quickly overwhelmed in a healthcare crisis,” the US embassy said, asking its citizens to continue exercising caution in day-to-day activities despite Tanzania opening up its sectors of business and society throughout the country

On Sunday, it emerged that an Indian who travelled from Tanzania had tested positive for Omicron variant in New Delhi, India, prompting authorities to “start investigations.”

Despite frequent warning alerts from Tanzania’s Health Ministry, public compliance to Covid-19 prevention measure has remained low, the US Embassy said.

“Data is not shared with the public in Tanzania. The government is promoting mitigation measures such as hand washing, masks and social distancing but public compliance remains low,” it added.

As of November 28, publicly available data shows that Tanzania has recorded 26,273 Covid-19 cases and 731 deaths. However, no new data has been made public for some time.