on march 8 an indian national traveled from
mumbai india to kigali the capital of rwanda five
days later he called the country's corvette 19 hotline
after he began experiencing flu-like symptoms while at home
he was subsequently referred to a hospital in kigali
on march 14 the rwandan ministry of health confirmed what
many feared the country's first culver 19 case
the rwandan government was already on standby to kick-start its covert 19
strategy after closely observing how the disease
was spreading in asia and europe its president paul kagame exhorted
rwandans to unite and show discipline in confronting
it would use innovative and aggressive methods to fight covert 19
including enlisting the help of robots and drawing on its experience from
handling past outbreaks including ebola in july the
european union lived to travel restrictions for rwandan residents
a testament to the country's overall response to contain the pandemic
rwanda became the first country in africa to impose a nationwide shutdown
on march 22nd after a wave of imported cases in the
country and the government's early response made all
the difference
the lockdown allowed the government time to complete setting up testing centers
isolate other imported cases and treat infected patients
rwandans were also reminded to practice good hygiene
while hand washing stations were created around the country the first days was
were a bit challenging because you know like you know used to
stay home all day long jean-luc habimana a documentary photographer and kigali
resident remembers the panic he felt when the country confirmed
the first few cases of cover 19. it felt more real it felt because before it
would be like oh people are like it's it's happening in
china maybe it's you know but then when it was in random they're like oh the
first case was recorded like oh this thing is really this thing
is serious they had started following the measures against coffee
way before the first case was recorded so we're
like oh pretty sure like things are gonna like
get controlled and stuff but then of course cases kept coming by
april the country had 75 cases recognizing the
urgency of stepping up its contact chasing system
the rwandan government gathered around 2 000 frontline workers and contact traces
including medical students and police officers to meet the challenge
the decision to use other people who could do the same job as doctors and
nurses could be doing was not only to maintain the continuity
of services in hospitals but also was to upgrade and to give
skills to people who'd going to use this
same skills in the future sabine in sanzimana
is directing the rwandan government's cover 19 strategy and
implementation he explains the rationale behind the country's unorthodox and
aggressive contact tracing plan we came from um 26 years ago
from a genocide against the tools in rwanda that
took out of the health system eighty percent
of the health personnel capacity were either
killed either phosphate in the killing or just
uh doctors nurses and health personnel just become
themselves patients in need of care you could imagine that
uh with a covered pandemic coming in as we build a
system would cause more harm and destruction of the system that was
already at a stage of reconstruction the
best economy you can imagine is when people are
healthy when you do proper lockdown you're indirectly investing in the
economy
i can measure your temperature okay go ahead over the years the government
has made strides to improve its healthcare system
despite being a developing country rwanda has universal health coverage
while plans are underway to implement more digital solutions in its healthcare
system in fact the country employ the use of
robots during the pandemic which can deliver food medication and
conduct temperature checks on up to 150 people
per minute seven one thing we've been talking about is the use of robots in
rwanda which we haven't seen a lot in other countries so
why did rwanda decide to take this approach if you
you lose your internists or your economist because
it's it's copied positive and is out of work and you only have
two or three in the country that will be catastrophic so
ideals more to protect those health personnel
so that they can freely manage cases without interacting with
patients so often
just as the government slowly eased lockdown restrictions in may
there was another surge of imported cases mainly
among truck drivers from neighboring countries
one such cluster of covered 19 cases was in the district of free city
in the western province of the country rwanda's frontline workers were
recording 10 positive cases out of every 100 samples in music which
borders the democratic republic of congo and burundi
in 2014 the same district was at risk of an outbreak
of a different deadlier virus the recently confirmed
case of an ebola virus outbreak in port harcourt river state capital which
claimed the life in life on friday the first case of the
west african ebola epidemic was reported in guinea
at the end of 2013 and it eventually spread to pockets of the continent
such as put haka to nigeria as well as the united states and europe
while the outbreaks were not linked the democratic republic of congo was also
recording rises in the number of ebola cases
by the end of 2019 congo recorded more than 3 000 cases of which 2
203 people died that's a death rate of 66 percent
rwanda was particularly at risk since tens of thousands of people ply the
border crossings daily a team of rwandan experts was sent to
congo to learn from their battle against ebola while the vigorous screening
process and enforced hand washing at the border
ensure that not a single case of ebola was recorded in
the country this experience 7 says gave rwanda the
expertise and infrastructure to fight cover 19.
our teams were exposed to to the response and also they helped
also they learned a lot from from this exchange
the same people when they returned back to rwanda are the ones still today
at the forefront to respond to convin 19. as the government began recording
more clusters of covert 19 cases in districts like recisi it stepped up
its approach in may to counter this rise
one such approach is called pull testing this method involves combing samples
from a group of 30 people for example instead of doing 30 individual tests
this technique yields a single result if a test detects the presence of the
virus the 30 individuals are then tested separately to determine who
was positive at the start of the pandemic the country
was testing close to a thousand samples a day but a pivot to the pull
testing approach increased its testing capability
fifteen-fold the strategy has also been successfully adopted in other african
countries like ghana and was launched in the
united states in july i think the government is really doing
their best to to test people who have symptoms as fast as
possible there were random testing programs
already mostly in the capital five months into the pandemic and rwanda
has outperformed many countries with its handling of the outbreak despite a spike
in infections in the middle of august the
country's death rate is below one percent
significantly lower than the fatality rates worldwide
while rwanda has been hailed as a role model for other african countries
some have criticized its aggressive approach such as the police's alleged
excessive use of force during the lockdown
the government has since launched an investigation into these claims
when you fight pandemic sometimes you need to take
actions that will protect people some people say no it doesn't exist
others will try to undermine the actions um that are protecting the people we've
seen it in in many countries and you've seen it
how it actually uh destroyed the response so rwanda's fights with covet
19 is still ongoing but thanks to its early
and aggressive strategies both its economy and borders have now
reopened however rwandans remain cautious and
still wear masks in public places jean-luc says he's proud of rwandans and
how responsive they've been to the government's measures he remains
optimistic not only about his country's future but
his continents too it makes me excited about the future
because i i really i really see the potential and when i
look at my generation how young people are working so hard to
move my country move africa to a better place
as a storyteller i feel even more excited to to leave the story and
you know get to tell them as usual guys thank you so much for watching our video
what do you think about how the rwandan government handled this
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