Tanzania to expect COVID-19 plane lands today in Julius Nyerere International Airport

A flight of humanitarian and health workers is expected to jet in the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania today, according to a news report by Tanzania Daily News.

The passenger flight run by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will arrive from Addis Ababa.

It is the first of its kind since Tanzania suspended international passenger flights from and to the country as part of initiatives to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The operation of the flight is part of the global system of UNFPA to provide logistics support for coronavirus.

WFP Representative in Tanzania Michael Dunford said in a statement that the services ensure that humanitarian organizations are capable of providing human resources and the consignment needed to sustain assistance operations to millions of vulnerable people in the world.

"As the leading UN agency for logistics, WFP has a key role to support the Government and the whole humanitarian community in ensuring supplies and staff are able to reach where they are needed," he said.

Upon arrival, the personnel will follow government guidance that requires all travelers from outside the country to stay in quarantine for 14 days, to establish whether they have been infected by Covid-19 or not.

The WFP boss added, "Our experience in running logistics operations has allowed WFP to adapt our programs to provide common logistics services to support the global humanitarian and health response."