mumbai india to kigali the capital of rwanda five

days later he called the country's corvette 19 hotline

after he began experiencing flu-like symptoms while at home

he was subsequently referred to a hospital in kigali

on march 14 the rwandan ministry of health confirmed what

many feared the country's first culver 19 case

the rwandan government was already on standby to kick-start its covert 19

strategy after closely observing how the disease

was spreading in asia and europe its president paul kagame exhorted

rwandans to unite and show discipline in confronting

it would use innovative and aggressive methods to fight covert 19

including enlisting the help of robots and drawing on its experience from

handling past outbreaks including ebola in july the

european union lived to travel restrictions for rwandan residents

a testament to the country's overall response to contain the pandemic

rwanda became the first country in africa to impose a nationwide shutdown

on march 22nd after a wave of imported cases in the

country and the government's early response made all

the difference

the lockdown allowed the government time to complete setting up testing centers

isolate other imported cases and treat infected patients

rwandans were also reminded to practice good hygiene

while hand washing stations were created around the country the first days was

were a bit challenging because you know like you know used to

stay home all day long jean-luc habimana a documentary photographer and kigali

resident remembers the panic he felt when the country confirmed

the first few cases of cover 19. it felt more real it felt because before it

would be like oh people are like it's it's happening in

china maybe it's you know but then when it was in random they're like oh the

first case was recorded like oh this thing is really this thing

is serious they had started following the measures against coffee

way before the first case was recorded so we're

like oh pretty sure like things are gonna like

get controlled and stuff but then of course cases kept coming by

april the country had 75 cases recognizing the

urgency of stepping up its contact chasing system

the rwandan government gathered around 2 000 frontline workers and contact traces

including medical students and police officers to meet the challenge

the decision to use other people who could do the same job as doctors and

nurses could be doing was not only to maintain the continuity

of services in hospitals but also was to upgrade and to give

skills to people who'd going to use this

same skills in the future sabine in sanzimana

is directing the rwandan government's cover 19 strategy and

implementation he explains the rationale behind the country's unorthodox and

aggressive contact tracing plan we came from um 26 years ago

from a genocide against the tools in rwanda that

took out of the health system eighty percent

of the health personnel capacity were either

killed either phosphate in the killing or just

uh doctors nurses and health personnel just become

themselves patients in need of care you could imagine that

uh with a covered pandemic coming in as we build a

system would cause more harm and destruction of the system that was

already at a stage of reconstruction the

best economy you can imagine is when people are

healthy when you do proper lockdown you're indirectly investing in the

economy

i can measure your temperature okay go ahead over the years the government

has made strides to improve its healthcare system

despite being a developing country rwanda has universal health coverage

while plans are underway to implement more digital solutions in its healthcare

system in fact the country employ the use of

robots during the pandemic which can deliver food medication and

conduct temperature checks on up to 150 people

per minute seven one thing we've been talking about is the use of robots in

rwanda which we haven't seen a lot in other countries so

why did rwanda decide to take this approach if you

you lose your internists or your economist because

it's it's copied positive and is out of work and you only have

two or three in the country that will be catastrophic so

ideals more to protect those health personnel

so that they can freely manage cases without interacting with

patients so often

just as the government slowly eased lockdown restrictions in may

there was another surge of imported cases mainly

among truck drivers from neighboring countries

one such cluster of covered 19 cases was in the district of free city

in the western province of the country rwanda's frontline workers were

recording 10 positive cases out of every 100 samples in music which

borders the democratic republic of congo and burundi

in 2014 the same district was at risk of an outbreak

of a different deadlier virus the recently confirmed

case of an ebola virus outbreak in port harcourt river state capital which

claimed the life in life on friday the first case of the

west african ebola epidemic was reported in guinea

at the end of 2013 and it eventually spread to pockets of the continent

such as put haka to nigeria as well as the united states and europe

while the outbreaks were not linked the democratic republic of congo was also

recording rises in the number of ebola cases

by the end of 2019 congo recorded more than 3 000 cases of which 2

203 people died that's a death rate of 66 percent

rwanda was particularly at risk since tens of thousands of people ply the

border crossings daily a team of rwandan experts was sent to

congo to learn from their battle against ebola while the vigorous screening

process and enforced hand washing at the border

ensure that not a single case of ebola was recorded in

the country this experience 7 says gave rwanda the

expertise and infrastructure to fight cover 19.

our teams were exposed to to the response and also they helped

also they learned a lot from from this exchange

the same people when they returned back to rwanda are the ones still today

at the forefront to respond to convin 19. as the government began recording

more clusters of covert 19 cases in districts like recisi it stepped up

its approach in may to counter this rise

one such approach is called pull testing this method involves combing samples

from a group of 30 people for example instead of doing 30 individual tests

this technique yields a single result if a test detects the presence of the

virus the 30 individuals are then tested separately to determine who

was positive at the start of the pandemic the country

was testing close to a thousand samples a day but a pivot to the pull

testing approach increased its testing capability

fifteen-fold the strategy has also been successfully adopted in other african

countries like ghana and was launched in the

united states in july i think the government is really doing

their best to to test people who have symptoms as fast as

possible there were random testing programs

already mostly in the capital five months into the pandemic and rwanda

has outperformed many countries with its handling of the outbreak despite a spike

in infections in the middle of august the

country's death rate is below one percent

significantly lower than the fatality rates worldwide

while rwanda has been hailed as a role model for other african countries

some have criticized its aggressive approach such as the police's alleged

excessive use of force during the lockdown

the government has since launched an investigation into these claims

when you fight pandemic sometimes you need to take

actions that will protect people some people say no it doesn't exist

others will try to undermine the actions um that are protecting the people we've

seen it in in many countries and you've seen it

how it actually uh destroyed the response so rwanda's fights with covet

19 is still ongoing but thanks to its early

and aggressive strategies both its economy and borders have now

reopened however rwandans remain cautious and

still wear masks in public places jean-luc says he's proud of rwandans and

how responsive they've been to the government's measures he remains

optimistic not only about his country's future but

his continents too it makes me excited about the future

because i i really i really see the potential and when i

look at my generation how young people are working so hard to

move my country move africa to a better place

as a storyteller i feel even more excited to to leave the story and

you know get to tell them as usual guys thank you so much for watching our video

what do you think about how the rwandan government handled this

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