Browsing: Coronavirus in East Africa

Trade among East African Community (EAC) member has suffered a catastrophic blow losing USD380 million in the span of just a single week.

There is not an economy that has not taken a hit from the coronavirus pandemic and the EAC trade bloc is no exception. While no official order has been issued to close their borders, each of the EAC member countries has limited all manner of movement, goods included.

Trucks are still going through to deliver goods but as Tanzania and Burundi agreed last week, the truck drivers would stay quarantined for 14 days. While for Kenya on the other hand, the country has chosen to escort the drivers and their tracks to their points of drop off and back, no detours allowed.

While cargo on transit has been forced to slow down to almost a snail pace, movement of people has come to a complete stop, if …

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is in East Africa, and has now penetrated Tanzania whereby until yesterday 12 (4 foreign national and 8 Tanzanian citizens) cases were reported.

Hence—unequivocally the Tanzanian government stated that almost 20 samples tested were negative, including the first patient.

According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic which has spread in more than 170 countries, taken more than 14,000 lives, and infected over 300,000 people.

Hence, this pandemic brought Tanzania President John Magufuli before the public, and addressed the nation of more than 55 million, to stay strong and be resilience through the outbreak.

The outbreak has also taken a toll on Tanzania’s economic landscape, hurting trade operations particularly between Tanzania and China of which their bilateral trade volumes stand at almost $3 billion.

Air Tanzania Company Limited has also seen a revenue loss of about 2 to 3 per cent, and just last week, the …