The United Nations Population Fund on Friday, July 24, donated medical protective equipment to the Rwanda Biomedical Center worth over Rwf75 million ($78,640) for health workers providing sexual and reproductive health services.

The development is in line with the national Covid-19 preparedness and response plan to ensure that doctors, nurses and midwives remain protected from the pandemic so that they keep providing other health services.

The package contained 71,477 surgical masks worth $28,182 while 14,700 goggles worth $50,458 are scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks.

During the handover event that took place at RBC’s Medical Procurement and Production Division at Kacyiru, Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, the Director-General of Rwanda Biomedical Center commended UNFPA for the donations especially since they are made in Rwanda products.

"We are very thankful for the donation, especially since they are all made in Rwanda products. The fact that they are homegrown solutions gives us hope that we shall not run out of stock”, he told the press.

He also added that the equipment will facilitate the sexual and reproductive health services that looked a bit stalled after the coronavirus outbreak.

Meanwhile, Mark Bryan Schreiner, the representative of the UNFPA in Rwanda commended Rwanda’s efforts to contain the novel coronavirus.

"Rwanda did well to prevent Ebola from entering the country and this is a tremendous testimony for Rwanda’ s health system, making us optimistic that the victory for coronavirus might be soon”, he said.

So far, Rwanda has tested over 231,186 tests and 1,710 of them have tested positive, 889 have recovered and 5 have died.