Rwanda has acquired a total of 108,000 Johnson & Johnson single-shot Covid-19 vaccines through the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT).

AVAT is an initiative by the African Union Member States through which they pooled their resources together to purchase vaccines and address vaccine inequality.

Through the initiative, Rwanda seeks to acquire over 2.19 million jabs, according to the Ministry of Health.

Thursday's consignment was received by Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, Director General, Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) along with Mama Keita, the Director, UNECA sub-regional office for Eastern Africa.

Keita described the development as a momentous step forward in Africa's efforts to safeguard the health and well-being of its people.

"This will provide impetus to the fight against Covid-19 across the continent and will lay the basis for Africa's social and economic recovery," she said.

By working together, and by pooling resources together, she was optimistic that African countries will progressively secure doses of vaccines, as opposed to the previous months.

Rwanda will continually receive doses from its order as more vaccines are manufactured, she added.

Administering phase next

Nsanzimana said that Government will immediately administer the doses using the already available infrastructure.

He said that as soon as vaccines are received in the country,  the plan is to kick off vaccination in areas with highest rates of infections.

"We are increasingly receiving doses, but our target has not been achieved so far. This requires us to do more as we plan to secure more and more."

Nsanzimana said that while over 1.5 million Rwandans have received their first dose, the government has only vaccinated 20 percent of its target.

The epidemiologist rallied Rwandans to participate in the ongoing vaccination campaign, citing various advantages attached to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

He said that first of all, as a single-shot vaccine, it is easier and cheaper to administer and that the vaccine has a longer shelf-life and favourable storage conditions.

Rwanda has recently ramped up its inoculation campaign, where everyone above the age of 18 can now receive the vaccine.

The government plans to vaccinate 60 percent of its 12.9 million population (or 7.8 million people) by June 2022.

And according to health practitioners, with the current pace of vaccination, 30 percent of the population, especially from urban areas, will be vaccinated by early 2022.