Dr. Daniel Ngamije receiving COVID-19 vaccine
Rwanda’s Minister of Health Dr. Daniel Ngamije has taken the first Covid-19 vaccine while launching the national vaccination campaign to fight the pandemic which has so far killed 266 people since March 14 last year when the first case was confirmed.
The launch of Covid-19 mass vaccination follows vaccine delivery from the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Coavax) Wednesday.
The Coavax vaccines came in two batches: 240,000 AstraZeneca doses that were delivered in the morning of Wednesday and 102,960 Pfizer doses that were received in the evening the same day.
At Masaka hospital health officials lined up waiting for the health minister to take the first jab until he arrived at around 12:08, local time.
Upon arrival, a team comprised of health officials, photojournalists, Dr. Ngamije, and Dr. Kasonde Mwinga, country director of the world health organization(WHO) entered the vaccine room to take the dose and later came out to address people who are also waiting to be vaccinated.
According to the distribution reports, most of the district hospitals received 5,000 and above doses.
For example, Nyaruguru received 5,382, Ngororero; Nyamagabe, Ngoma, Gatsibo, Gisagara, Huye and Burera among other 30 districts all got 5,500 doses.
The ministry of health said earlier that the vaccines will be dispatched from the Rwanda Biomedical Center warehouse to District Hospitals and then onto 50 District and referral hospitals and 508 health centers across the country.
