All hospitality establishments including hotels, restaurants, coffee shops among others will be registering all customers patronising their premises, in order to strengthen the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The directive, whose implementation starts with immediate effect was announced Tuesday, May 12, by Rwanda Development Board (RDB).

According to a statement released by the board, registration shall include full names, telephone numbers, time of visit and district where the visiting customer resides.

The information "will be kept confidential, and may only be used for contact tracing of COVID-19 cases” part of the statement reads.

Hospitality outlets were among the establishments that were reopened on May 4 after weeks of lockdown but they are all asked to observe the measures in place, including the 8pm-5am curfew.  

The country’s confirmed cases of the virus in the country are currently 285 out of which 150 have recovered while 135 patients remain at treatment facilities.

Speaking during the past weekend, the Minister of Health Dr. Daniel Ngamije said that Rwanda was yet to register a community infection, as all those registered were traced to people who had recent travel history.

The recent spike in cases was attributed to long-haul truck drivers who transport cargo from ports into the country.

According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health, a total of 42,805 COVID-19 tests have been conducted since the country confirmed the first case.

With no reported death so far, the government recently eased the COVID-19 lockdown allowing more businesses to resume operations for more 15 days.

However everyone has been urged to put on face masks in public and in multifamily compounds, to continue washing hands regularly, and practice physical distancing among other directives.