Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), in partnership with the City of Kigali, has announced a free Covid-19 testing exercise targeting people aged 25 and above in the City of Kigali. Under this activity which will be held at each cell starting Thursday, January 28, at least 100 people of the specified age will be tested in each of the 161 cells that make up the City of Kigali. This implies that the activity targets at least 16,100 people. Normally, a Covid-19 test costs between Rwf10,000 and Rwf47,000 depending on the type (it is Covid-19 antigen rapid test, or real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The move is intended to ascertain the state of the pandemic in the different communities of the City, for well-informed health measures. Kigali has for the past couple of months the source of the biggest number of infections, according to daily Covid-19 updates shared by the health ministry. People who meet the criteria are requested to go to the cell office in which they reside at the date and time they will be communicated to by the leadership of the sector. This is the second phase of Covid-19 testing exercise as the first consisted of free Covid-19 tests for older people aged 70 years and above and those with chronic diseases to learn the transmission level among them. The development came 10 days after Kigali was placed under a second lockdown as a result of surging Covid-19 cases compared to the rest of the country, according to reported data from the Ministry of Health. Figures from the Ministry indicate that as of Wednesday, January 27, 2021, Rwanda had recorded 14,166 cases of Covid-19, of which 9,042 people had recovered from the disease in the country.
