Rwanda lays out preparations for vaccine rollout

Rwanda plans to carry out a vaccination program which is expected to span a period of two years and cover 60 percent of the total population. This is according to remarks made by Sabin Nsanzimana, the director general of the Rwanda Biomedical Center, while speaking to local media on Jan 21.

According to Nsanzimana, orders for the vaccine doses were made from different manufacturers because the government is open to receiving any vaccine that has been approved for scientific emergency use by the World Health Organization.

"We ordered 1 million emergency doses and we are waiting and hoping to receive them soon. We hope that by February or even earlier than that, we could have the first round of vaccinations," Nsanzimana said.

"To vaccinate 60 percent of the total population, the government will need $124 million. These funds will of course include vaccines and other logistics-like operations and other medical elements that are required to complete the package. It is a two year plan that will be targeting this vaccine to about 8 million people," he added.

Nsanzimana added that Rwanda is working with the Covax vaccine coalition where countries got together in a mechanism that will accelerate access, production and price negotiation.

In a national address last month, Daniel Ngamije, Rwanda's minister for health, said that only 20 percent of Rwanda's population will be vaccinated in the first phase due to the available resources. However, he said that the country seeks to progressively increase the number to roughly 60 percent.

"For the first phase of COVID-19 vaccinations, we are targeting 20 percent of the population. However, this does not stop us from engaging other countries in order to secure more doses to be able to vaccinate at least 60 percent of the population," Ngamije said.

According to Nsanzimana, the vaccination is expected to be done in phases with the first phase targeting front-line workers in healthcare. This phase will also see the vaccination of people above 65 and those whose immunity is weak and is likely to easily be compromised like those with cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and other serious diseases.