Presenter: Hawa Sidy, Physiology & Neurobiology, Global Public Health Scholars
COVID-19, an unprecedented and unexpected virus, has affected the world drastically. Tanzania, the observed country of my project, has low rates of COVID-19 cases. Its low socioeconomic status has caused their health equity and equality to be an issue. I performed a deep qualitative analysis observing the attitudes and beliefs of the people of Tanzania to recognize why Tanzania has had a low rate of positive cases in their country and what made it so effective. To explore their beliefs, I familiarized myself, virtually, with surveys that were conducted in Tanzania by in-country interviewers, where then I categorized key, recurrent themes that looked into Tanzania’s outbreak control, economic effects, and responses in the local context. It is important to mention that their effectiveness is due partly to the fact that government and community actions were taken seriously, which I think would have been helpful to other countries like the United States because there is a positive correlation between beliefs of COVID-19 and mortality rates. Also, I have learned that Tanzania is a hotspot for viruses, meaning that they have experience in reducing transmission rate, which could be a reason for their successful rates.