Tanzania, which has been criticized for dealing with the pandemic, has no plans to export Covid vaccines, the health minister said.
The comments come days after President John Magufuli warned officials to purchase vaccines, saying they could harm people without giving evidence.
Critics have accused him of despising the threat of the virus.
Millions of people have already been vaccinated in many countries after the vaccines received emergency permission.
Vaccinations are carefully tested in trials with thousands of people before being judged by health regulators. They look at all the data on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines before approving them for use in a wider population.
Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) called on Tanzania to consider its population.
Tanzania is one of the few countries in the world that does not publish information on Covid-19 cases. It last did so in May when about 500 cases and 20 deaths were recorded. The following month, Magufuli declared Tanzania “coronavirus-free”.
Last month, the president said some Tanzanians had traveled abroad to take the vaccine, but ‘finally brought us a foreign coronavirus’. The comment is seen as an apparent acknowledgment that the virus could spread in the country.
Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima told a news conference on Monday: “The government is not currently planning to distribute the Covid vaccine in other countries.”
The minister urged Tanzanians to take precautions and use traditional medicine as a way to deal with coronavirus, although its effectiveness in fighting the virus has not been scientifically proven.
A blogger shared photos of Dr Gwajima and other officials inhaling steam and taking an herbal concoction.
Waziri wa Afya, Dk. Dorothy Gwajima na naibu-wakker, Dk. Godwin Mollel, who has been an asylum seeker for the benefit of all who have waandishi wa habari jijini Dodoma Jumatatu 01 February 2021, wamewahamasisha wananchi kutumia tiba mbadala ili kukabiliana na magonjwa mbalimbali. pic.twitter.com/oOklD2qN94
– Haki Ngowi (@Hakingowi) 1 February 2021
Dr Gwajima also warned media not to report official information on coronavirus or any disease. The warning comes after the Catholic Church said it had observed an increase in masses of sightings and blamed the funerals for the increase in coronavirus infections.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised against traveling to Tanzania and updated its level four warning, which means that coronavirus transmission in the country is ‘high or rising fast’.
Many African states buy vaccines through an international scheme called Covax, but some also plan to negotiate directly from pharmaceutical companies.
The Covax scheme aims to make it easier for poorer countries to buy vaccines, amid growing concerns that affluent countries are picking it up and practicing ‘vaccine nationalism’.
South Africa, which has the most Covid-19 cases and deaths on the continent, received its first consignment of vaccines on Monday – the AstraZeneca vaccine from a manufacturer in India.
About 1.2 million health workers at the front would be vaccinated first, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
More than 1.4 million people in South Africa have contracted the virus and 44,164 are known to have died, according to research by Johns Hopkins University.
African states that started vaccination include Egypt, Guinea, Morocco and Seychelles.
Originally published