Rwanda Development Board CEO, Clare Akamanzi, has said that the government has strengthened its system to test all staff of national parks, airport and hotels near touristic sites every two weeks for COVID-19 as Rwanda prepares to welcome international flights beginning August 1.
The system started in June when domestic tourism was given a green light to resume, to ensure safety of tourists against the coronavirus pandemic.
Rwanda has so far recorded over 1600 positive Covid-19 cases, half of which have recovered while five have died.
Speaking to CNN journalist Richard Quest on Monday, Akamanzi said Rwanda has been working ‘very hard’ in dealing with the virus and more efforts are being put to revive Rwanda’s economy.
"We believe that we’ve had a formula and we keep working on the formula to contain the virus. We were able to learn from the science but as well as learn how to bring the economy back to life like many countries have been doing,” she said.
Despite limited resources and difficult circumstances Rwanda has recently been hailed for its successful response to Covid-19 and Akamanzi said containing the pandemic has been mainly due to three things, namely the trust and partnership that the government has built over the years with the citizens thanks to which Rwanda was able to change citizens’ behaviors to abide by the guidelines like; social distancing, washing hands among others.
The increase in Covid-19 testing capacity and the increase in tests taken per day have so far been crucial to containing the pandemic as well.
The government has been able to increase the testing capacity using the infrastructures in the hospitals across the country, where it has built a contact tracing system of over 1 900 tracers while the increase in the COVID-19 testing has seen testing capacity increase from 300 tests per day to 3000-5000 tests.
"Those three things have made it very important for us to be able to contain the virus and also learn from the infrastructure of the health system that we built over the years. It is still a modest infrastructure but it has been improving over the years,” she said.
With all these efforts, however, she said containing coronavirus is ‘work in progress’ and insists it is important not only to look at the scientific response of the pandemic but also find ways to revive the economy.
"It is something that we have to keep doing, we have to learn how to live safely with the virus until the vaccine is available,” she said
While Rwanda prepares to welcome international flights from August 1, Akamanzi said Rwanda has been working with neighboring countries to put a system in place to facilitate cargo trucks to move in and out of the country.
The government has built a testing capacity at all its borders where truck drivers are tested to manage the pandemic. The trucks are escorted from the border to their destinations to make sure that the country is able to oversee where the trucks are going and limit a movement of truck drivers to the community.
Supporting the private sector
Since Rwanda confirmed the first case of coronavirus in March, business has never been the same. Some were forced to suspend operations and have since counted losses.
Akamanzi said the government has put in place an economic recovery fund of over $100 million, which it wants to double to $ 200 million to support the private sector for businesses affected by the pandemic.
"For us, participating in building this fund to a bigger size and also for the private sector and investors all over the world to come to Rwanda and be able to support the businesses to grow is something that we are creating a safer environment for,” she explained.