Ten days since it was launched, the Covid-19 treatment facility in Nyarugenge District Hospital has already exceeded 70 per cent of its total capacity of patients, raising concerns over the spike in the virus spread within Kigali, the Director General of the Rwanda Biomedical Centre, Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, has said.
By Thursday last week, at least 18 Rwandans were fighting for their lives in the facility’s High Dependency Care Unit (HDU).
The facility has the capacity to admit over 136 patients in its Intensive Care Unit.
Appearing on the national broadcaster on Sunday January 18 shortly before the capital city was placed under a total lockdown, Nsanzimana said this means that the government had to make extraordinary decisions to ensure that the current numbers of the infected and the dead does not double or triple.
The numbers
Nsanzimana pointed out that RBC had recently conducted random tests among about 2,900 people in a span of four to five days.
The random tests are usually drawn from places with high human traffic like markets, or on roads where drivers and pedestrians are stopped and invited to provide samples.
He said that while such samples found only 0.1 per cent people infected in September last year, this quickly changed in January.
He said that in November, one percent of the tested were found positive and the number increased to two percent in December during the festive season.
Nsanzimana added that other tests done in January indicated that 3 percent were infected while the just concluded mass random tests.
Countrywide, among those randomly tested countrywide, five percent were infected while in the City of Kigali alone, the number those infected stood at 12 percent.
"If we do not take fast and unusual steps, we face two challenges. One is that the hospital is going to fill up, and the 12 percent is going to increase to 20 or 30 percent. The more the number rises, the more we are faced with people in critical condition and those dying,” he said.
Nsanzimana said that hard decisions have to be made especially since Rwanda has not received the Covid-19 vaccines yet.
"We don’t have a vaccine yet this virus is killing the young and old and we do not want to see what has happened in other countries, where we are in a situation where we also start worrying about who is dying next,” he said.
He blamed complacency among the masses and the travels during the festive season for the spike but reminded that the next steps by individuals, city authorities, medics, frontliners are crucial in containing the spread of the virus.
The group is part of the more than 40 Covid-19 patients who are currently in critical condition.
Nsanzimana explained that patients who are admitted in HDU ordinarily need the most intensive care normally more than those in Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
"Patients admitted in this category are worse than ICU patients. They require extreme care and a variety of resources,” Nsanzimana said.
In part, the epidemiologist attributed the cause to the home-based care patients who continue to mingle freely with the public thereby making it difficult for their bodies to battle the virus as well as putting masses at a high risk.
Secondly, he added, "We have also discovered that some people report to health agencies at a later stage, mainly because of ignoring the effects of this pandemic.”
Nsanzimana pointed out that it is time Rwandans dispel the myth that this virus is just a normal cold, especially with the impact it has brought to the country.