Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente has disclosed that the country aims to vaccinate at least nine million people against Covid-19 by October 2022. The PM told both chambers of parliament on Friday last week that the numbers were revised from 7.8 million following the rollout of the vaccination drive in schools where children above the age of 12 are targeted. He was briefing lawmakers on the on the country’s Covid-19 vaccination statues. Ngirente appeared in parliament alongside Dr. Daniel Ngamije, the Minister of Health and Jean Marie Vianney Gatabazi, the Minister of Local Government. “We are optimistic to achieve the target even before the set duration,” indicated the Prime Minister. The revision means that Rwanda now aims to vaccinate 69.4 per cent of her population by the end of October 2022. As of Dec. 2, up to 3,625,000 or 40 per cent of the country’s population had been fully vaccinated whereas six million had received their first dose. Rwanda has received 12.9 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine either through the COVAX facility (a global initiative that aims at accelerating fair and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines), through the donations while others were acquired from the government’s budget. Ngirente explained why the City of Kigali has received more vaccinations compared to the other four pronvices. “As a city that is in the centre of the country, it is easy for people to move out and spread the disease to other provinces, just as it was the first to record the Covid case,” he recalled. He is also of the view that Kigali accounts for 50 per cent of the economic activity that makes up the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), and hence to permit economic stability, more people had to be vaccinated. MPs raise concerns After his presentation, several MPs raised their concerns regarding the effects of Covid-19 pandemic and cabinet resolutions on the disease. MP Rose Mureshyankwano asked what the government was doing to restore jobs that were lost due to the outbreak of the pandemic. “Our capacity in the public sector is limited,” answered the Prime Minister. But to restore jobs in the private sector, he added, the government has initiated various incentives including tax waivers and the Economic Recovery Fund among others.
