Centre of excellence for highly infectious diseases under construction

A centre of excellence expected to scale up Rwanda’s emergency preparedness in managing highly infectious diseases through protecting health workers and curbing infection spread is under construction at Masaka medical hub, in Kigali, and is set to be completed by the end of 2024, it has emerged. This was disclosed on February 19 by officials at the Ministry of Health and the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) during a session with the Senate’s Committee on Social Affairs and Human Rights. The session was looking at Rwanda’s efforts to prevent and treat epidemics. Dr. Edson Rwagasore, the Division Manager of Public Health Surveillance and Emergency Preparedness and Response at RBC, said that construction works for the “centre of excellence for management of highly pathogenic diseases” started in January, but an official launch is expected in March, while it is due for completion by the end of the year. He indicated that its budget is estimated at €5 million (approx. Rwf6.8 billion). Health Minister Dr Sabin Nsanzimana said that the project is being implemented by the government of Rwanda in partnership with Germany and modelled after a similar centre in Germany. He told senators that the country needs such a centre where it can send people who suffer from a highly-infectious diseases to be treated at the same time ensuring that health workers attending to them have technology that protects them from contracting such diseases. As a centre of excellence, Dr. Rwagasore said, it will serve different functions including isolation, treatment, and training at regional level, because it is the first isolation of its kind in the East African Community. “It will have what is called negative pressure such that infection prevention control (IPC) will be at a high standard,” he said. IPC is a practical, evidence-based approach preventing patients and health workers from being harmed by avoidable infections, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). “This gives opportunity to a health worker to treat any highly infectious disease without getting infected,” Rwagasore observed, citing Marburg, a rare but severe haemorrhagic fever, and Ebola. Cases of the two diseases were reported in neighbouring countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania. ALSO READ: Hospitals undertake clinical drills on Ebola preparedness Elaborating on such protection assurance, Rwagasore said that it results from the facility’s infrastructure design with advanced technology such that it will have negative pressure [pressure lower than that of the surroundings], meaning that air that enters a given area [room] cannot escape from there thereby preventing contaminated air from spreading. The centre will have a capacity of 10 single patient rooms complying with intensive care unit standards, Rwagasore said, adding that there is possibility to expand the facility if need be. The facility adds to the existing centre based in Bugesera District, Eastern Province –the Nyamata Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Center. This centre in Bugesera has a 100-bed capacity, but the envisaged new one is a centre of excellence which will have a continuous training component, and it will drill medical personnel to be at good standards in terms of healthcare, Rwagasore pointed out.

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Centre of excellence for highly infectious diseases under construction