Tajikistan has raised major suspicion as it claims to not have any COVID-19 positive patients till date. President Emomali Rahmon has been riding the wave of increased political clout from negative testing, raising more doubts about the accuracy of reporting in the country.
According to Eurasianet, four deaths of citizens aged over 58 since 31 March have raised serious doubts about the government’s claims. These speculations gained traction after one of the patients who reportedly died of pneumonia was found to have been placed in quarantine after his death. Further, the official cause of death of a cleaner on 13 April was reported as “complications arising from tuberculosis and heart problems”, although her relatives refuted the tuberculosis diagnosis.
As of yesterday, Tajikistan only has two laboratories equipped to perform the coronavirus polymerase chain reaction-based tests. Both are based in the capital city Dushanbe; there are no testing facilities in the northern parts of the country.
A spate of deaths in Tajikistan over the past few weeks is nurturing suspicion of government officials’ insistence that the coronavirus has made no inroads into the country.
A Tajik political analyst said that he was convinced that the government was trying to emulate China’s initial policy of concealing all coronavirus cases. “Until the virus becomes a mass phenomenon, the authorities will hide the fact. But if it does become a mass phenomenon, people in this country are going to be in trouble because we have a limited number of ventilators,” he said.
Andrea Schmidt of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs finds it paradoxical that Tajikistan, who shares a border and an intense bilateral relationship with China, has not yet reported any cases of the virus.
Image Source: Radio Free Europe
Mysterious Deaths Raise Suspicion Over Tajikistan’s Claim of Zero COVID-19 Cases
April 15, 2020
