What is behind Rwanda’s rapid Covid-19 vaccination drive?

Global vaccination statistics indicate that Rwanda is among few African countries with the fastest trend of the Covid-19 vaccination drive. World Health Organisation figures highlight that over 8 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have so far been administered globally, but only 3 percent of these doses have been delivered on the African continent. Today, just over 102 million Africans – equivalent to 8 percent of the African population – have so far been inoculated whereas 70 percent of the developed countries have vaccinated 60 percent of their total population. Some of the populous African countries like Nigeria have only vaccinated 3.5 percent of their total population, according to available statistics, while Rwanda which has enough vaccines to inoculate 70 percent of its population. As of early January 2022, over 5.5 million Rwandans had been fully vaccinated while above 7.7 million people had obtained their first dose. Over 200,000 people have also obtained the booster. Considering the hoarding and protectionism of the vaccines, it is of interest to find out how Rwanda managed to achieve these global milestones amidst the suffering continent of Africa. According to Dr. Hassan Sibomana, the Director of Vaccination Programme Unit at Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), there was a greater demand for vaccines considering the pandemic, but he also asserts that Rwanda’s political will made the vaccines available. “We were lucky to have the leadership that minded the wellness of the people, starting from the head of the state who was really keen on such an issue,” he recently said during a televised program on the national broadcaster. Sibomana added that Rwanda did not only rely on external donations and funding, but also used its own budget to purchase them. “The government invested considerable efforts to acquire vaccines, and we did not only acquire them from charity organisations, because over 4 million doses of vaccines were acquired from our own budget,” he noted, citing that Rwanda has also obtained other vaccines due to our bilateral relations with other countries. On the other side, Dr. Rosette Nahimana, the Director of Vaccination Program at WHO Rwanda, believes that Rwanda’s efficient system to administer vaccines in an equitable way was another pull factor. “Quick, fair, transparent and equitable administration of vaccines in Rwanda entrusted international organisations with much confidence to donate more vaccines to Rwanda,” she observed. The vaccines are the only rays of hope for this pandemic that has claimed close to 2 million lives in 2020 and 3.5 million in 2021 because its death toll started subsidizing when the vaccines were rolled out in late 2020. However, they were rolled out in bigger economies, locking out vulnerable populations especially in low income countries. Rwanda is among the few countries in Africa that have achieved the target of vaccinating 40 percent of the entire population by December 2021. 92 out of 194 member states missed the target. The country had also scooped the WHO’s global target in September 2021 to vaccinate 10 percent of its population. Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm and Moderna are among the eight different types of vaccines administered in Rwanda. As of December 2, Rwanda had received 12.9 million doses of vaccines.

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What is behind Rwanda’s rapid Covid-19 vaccination drive?