With Rwanda’s cases of COVID-19 recovery exceeding active ones, optimism is growing that the virus will be defeated. By Monday, April 20, some 80 patients had recovered from the virus in Rwanda, out of the total 147 confirmed cases. This means that there are only 67 active cases remaining. Registering many recoveries is absolutely good news, however, the ideal goal in fighting a pandemic is to completely halt its spread. So, slowing it is critical, according to medical experts. In an interview with The New Times, Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, the Director General of Rwanda Biomedical Centre described testing and finding out positive cases as the gold standard. He said that a “flat curve” is informed by indicators such as recoveries surpassing admissions, consecutive days of mass testing and no new positive cases, hospitals not being overwhelmed and no risk of imported cases. Flattening the curve—a common term in fighting pandemics—essentially means keeping the daily number of disease cases at a manageable level for medical providers. For Rwanda, cases of COVID-19 have not reached unmanageable levels for medics, however, there is need to examine the country’s curve, to see if things are going in the right direction. Yet, questions have persisted on whether new cases are going down or at what rate they are increasing. This is because, for a country to say it has moved close to defeating the pandemic, there is a serious requirement for it to have really reduced or completely halted the occurrence of new cases. Currently, recoveries are overtaking admissions, and that of course may mean that there will not be occurrences of any pressure on the health system, Nsanzimana says. But the most important indicator in defeating the pandemic is: if the country records no new cases as it does mass testing of people. Currently, Rwanda is able to carry out 1200 tests in a single day, thanks to automated sampling machines. In the first 8 days of the pandemic (March 14 to 21), Rwanda recorded an average of 2.25 cases, but in some of these days, testing capacity was still low, and about 30 people were being tested daily. In the days following, the cases rose. For 15 days (from March 21 to April 4), an average of 5.6 cases was recorded, and in these, there were two days on which a record high of 19 and 18 cases were recorded. From April 4 to 20, an average of 2.6 cases has been registered, a low figure despite the mass testing which can take up to 1000 samples a day. Looking at the conditions for defeating the pandemic, Dr. Nsanzimana warns that we cannot simply say the curve is flattened by just looking at how it stands now. On a positive note, however, with the lockdown, the country’s borders closed, there is less risk for imported cases, which is also a positive in making sure that the possibility of achieving cases can materialize.
