The Minister of Health, Dr. Daniel Ngamije, has said that Rwanda discouraged the denial of the existence of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is one of the factors that led to vaccine hesitancy among the public in some countries.

Vaccination hesitancy refers to delay in acceptance, or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccine services.

Ngamije was speaking on Friday, March 11, 2022 as he shared Rwanda's experience in response to the covid-19 pandemic.

He was addressing MPs and delegates at the 77th Session of the Executive Committee of African Parliamentary Union (APU) in Kigali.

MPs from some African countries expressed concern of vaccine hesitancy that resulted in low vaccination rate in their respective nations.

Ngamije noted that among the factors that contributed to the vaccine hesitancy was denial of the existence of the disease – referring to the fact that there are countries where speeches denying Covid-19 were categorically delivered.

This is in addition to low levels of sensitisation.  

"It is a combination of all of that which resulted in the current situation where there are some countries that received vaccines and they see them expiring in their stocks,” he said.

Talking about Rwanda’s experience, he said that the first thing that the country did is "we did not seek to deny the disease, nor hide the statistics [about it]”.

Thanks to the recognition of Covid-19, through the provision of information on the fact that the disease was infectious and could kill all people white or black, old and young ones,   there was an interest in the vaccine acceptance.

"The denial of a pandemic, is a big error that a country can regret, because denying doesn’t contain a disease and its challenges,” he observed.

Every day, he said, the Rwandan population were informed about what was happening to the point that Covid-19 was an issue for everybody, and everybody was requested to be an actor to contain this disease.

"So, as a result, vaccine hesitancy in Rwanda does not exist at all,” he said, pointing out that that’s why the country has been able to reach a vaccination coverage of 61 percent of its population so far, with over 7.9 million people fully vaccinated (two doses administered) as of March 10.

Indeed, on 27 December 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that Rwanda had achieved its target by fully vaccinating 40 percent of its population against Covid-19 as of December 24, 2021.

This coverage milestone, WHO said, put the country on track for meeting a further global vaccination target to reach 70 percent inoculation by mid-2022.

Worth mentioning, he said that as Africa invests in the future, "we need to start thinking about manufacturing vaccines as a long-term solution.

Investing in healthcare reinforcement

Meanwhile, to be better prepared to deal with health shocks, Minister Ngamije told legislators that there was a need to adequately finance health systems for them to be strong enough.

"If we want to be ready to face future pandemics, there are some critical investments that we should make,” he told parliamentarians who vote budgets.

"People should not die because of lack of oxygen,” he said, underscoring the need to invest in the health system to be able to effectively respond to Covid-19 variants.

Ngamije said that the country boosted its capacity for oxygen production, explaining that when Rwanda had a Covid-19 delta variant wave in July and August last year, there was a shortage of oxygen supply in different countries.

"The Government of Rwanda invested up to $5 million to procure oxygen plants into Rwanda – from China, Turkey. And today, we have oxygen plants in all hospitals,” he said, indicating that this investment will help provide lifesaving medical oxygen to patients in need in case of any pandemic.