The chairman of Tanzania's main opposition party, Freeman Mbowe, has been hospitalised after being attacked and injured by unknown assailants, police and party officials said on Tuesday.

Mbowe was set upon late on Monday as he returned home in the capital Dodoma, his party, Chadema, said in a statement posted on its official Twitter account.

Our priority now is his health," Chadema official John Mnyika told local media.

Mbowe has repeatedly accused the government of covering up the true extent of the coronavirus in Tanzania, where authorities stopped updating figures in April.

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Mbowe and several other opposition MPs were briefly jailed in March in connection with a banned protest against President John Magufuli's government, which has been accused of crushing dissent and harassing political opponents.