New Covid-19 variants detected in Rwanda

By Maniraguha Ferdinand

Rwanda’s Minister of Health says the tiny East African Country has detected new Covid-19 variants including the one from South Africa and United Kingdom.

Dr Daniel Ngamije was appearing on National Television this Sunday, 21^st March 2021, when he revealed that all variants were from outside the country, no local transmission.

Ngamije assured that all cases of Covid variants were detected at the airports, before spreading out into the country.

“Last week, we detected 12 people two of whom had UK Covid variant, ten had South African Covid variant. We detected them at the airport, they were coming from abroad”, he said’

“As always, we placed them in  isolation for them to get special treatment. We took care of them until we tested and results showed that they no longer have virus in their bodies”, he added.

Some Rwandans have been expressing fears that Covid-19 variants may have spread into the population especially since November last year when new cases soared.

However, Ngamije told national broadcaster that since August last year, the country has  had ability to detect any kind of Covid including new variants.

“Until now, in general population we still have the same Covid-19, we are yet to find  any local transmission of new Covid variant”, he assures.

More than 20 000 cases of Covid-19 have been detected in Rwanda since March 2020. More than 280 people  have died of the pandemic.

Early March this year, the country started vaccination. More than 300 000 people were vaccinated with Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines in the course of three weeks.