Rwanda’s Covid-19 vaccination process could cost up to about $120 million with short term costs standing at $47 million, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning has said. The vaccination process, which commenced in March and is expected to reach out to 7.8 million people representing 60 per cent of the population by June next year. The cost of the entire process including logistics, distribution and facilitation. Richard Tusabe, the Minister of State in charge of the National Treasury said that they are working alongside partners to mobilise funds for the process. Among the partners working to mobilise funds for the vaccination exercise is the World Bank Group. World Bank Rwanda Country Manager, Rolande Pryce, said that they are in the process of completing a proposal to be submitted to the Board of the group in the coming month. The proposal could see up to $30 million availed to Rwanda to support the ongoing countrywide vaccination which is expected to enable resumption to normalcy and increased economic activity. With Covax expected to avail about 1.2 million doses, the country will be looking to acquire more doses to cover up to 60 per cent of the population. Rwanda has also secured an additional 2.6 million doses from AU’s Unions African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT). The AVATT was established by the AU as a component in support of the Africa Vaccine Strategy that was endorsed by the AU Bureau of Heads of State and Government in August 2020. The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is facilitating payments by providing advance procurement commitment guarantees of up to US$2 billion to the manufacturers on behalf of the Member States. AVATT has secured provisional 600 million Covid-19 doses from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca with the first 50 million expected to be available by April. Rwanda’s composition of 2.6 million doses is made up of about 500,000 from Pfizer, about 1 Million doses from Johnson & Johnson and about 1 million AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses expected to cover about 1.8 million Rwandans. So far over 250,000 Rwandans have received their first doses of vaccine in the ongoing exercise putting the country among the nations that have vaccinated the highest number in Africa.
