Rwanda's handling of COVID 19 Pandemic commendable

Moto-taxi riders being tested for COVID-19 on a street in Kigali

While European countries such as France and Germany are bracing for a third wave of COVID-19 cases, Rwanda is steadily edging towards making life as normal as possible for its citizens.

Rwanda identified the first case of the new Corona virus on its territory on March 8, 2020. The patient had symptoms upon arrival in Rwanda and reported himself to a health facility. The country immediately adopted stringent measures, including closing all schools, pubs, restaurants, places for worship, and instituted a complete lockdown of the capital. In addition, it initially imposed a night curfew from 21:00 hrs to 4:00 a.m.

The Rwandan government followed the advice of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on how to prevent COVID-19 from spreading by advising the population to adopt simple day-to-day measures that include regular hand washing with soap and water, using  sanitisers, testing people for high temperature at the entrance of all venues including markets, shops, banks, hotels, and others.

Rwanda also deployed an army of volunteers to remind people to wear a mask and wear it properly. It deployed the police to ensure observance of the preventive measures.

The first lockdown was understandably very painful to casual workers especially residents of the capital who so much depended on hand-to-mouth jobs. But the government quickly rolled out a program to supply food and basic essentials to assist the most in need in the community.

Other measures included screening for COVID-19 for any arrivals at the country's main airport using health officials and modern technology, including robots. The mandatory 24-hour quarantine helped to control infection rates. Anyone departing from Rwanda had to show a negative COVID-19 test certificate obtained within 72 hours.

Robots deployed at the airport and hospitals boosted Rwanda’s response to COVID-19

These measures could not have been successful without a vigilant and responsible government which acted quickly to impose measures to bring under control the pandemic whenever there was an uptake in cases. This was the case most recently when the government imposed another lockdown and put a halt to movements between the capital and the provinces.

Last October, the WHO applauded Rwanda for instituting a strong system that enabled the country to effectively confront the pandemic.

Rwanda continues to run an all-of-government response to bring the virus under control, following the fundamentals from testing and contact tracing to wide use of public health measures.

Rwanda put in place a robust system of tracking and tracing, isolating and treating COVID-19 patients. In a very short time, the government opened a specialized hospital in the capital, Kigali, to deal specifically with the isolation and treatment of patients. The hospital has more tha 130 beds.

Aerial view of new Nyarugenge hospital providing intensive care for COVID-19 patients

As of March 25, Rwanda had registered 21,210 COVID-19 confirmed cases, out of which 19,540 had already recovered. The death toll from the virus stood at 298. The district with the highest number of infected people is Gasabo (in Kigali city) with 23 cases.

The country recently detected 12 cases of the UK variant from people travelling to Rwanda. They were quickly isolated and treated.

Medical teams carry out COVID-19 testing on a daily basis at the airport and border points, and in all parts of the country.  The results are made public on every day. The tests are also done free of charge.  People arriving in the country are tested and receive their results in less than 12 hours.

Nevertheless, in February, despite these achievements in containing the pandemic, Britain put Rwanda on the list of high-risk countries banning all flights from Rwanda. Its travel bans were extended to the United Arab Emirates, Burundi and Rwanda. Rwanda protested this irrational measure, and asked for an explanation but no response was received.

Surprisingly, earlier, the Lowy Institute, a think-tank based in Australia, had ranked Rwanda sixth - and the only African country in the top 10 - among the countries that handled the outbreak best. Its COVID Performance Index found that, among other factors, capable institutions were the most important factors in managing the pandemic.

However, Britain soon removed Portugal and Mauritius from its travel ban list without any scientific explanation, begging the question: was the travel ban which affected Rwanda, and left its neighbors out a political gimmick?

The country's fight against the pandemic got a short in the arm with the arrival, on March 3, of the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX initiative. According to the WHO, the first batch of 240,000 of Astra-Zeneca-Oxford vaccines arrived in Kigali, followed another one of Pfizer. Rwanda immediately rolled out its vaccination programme starting with persons of high risks; frontline workers like doctors and nurses, teachers, journalists, and those who interact with many people in their daily activities like  business people, taxi and minibus drivers, moto taxi riders, as well as street cleaners.

More than 343,700 people received their first dose and there are no cases of serious side effects registered like blood clotting as was reported in some European countries.