As part of the U.S. pledge to end the pandemic by providing one billion vaccine doses to countries around the world, Rwanda received more than eight million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. This was enough to vaccinate more than 25 percent of the entire population in Rwanda and included over one million pediatric doses to protect Rwandan children. The support provided by the United States also included mobile x-ray machines for the Rwanda Biomedical Centre to provide urgent support to Rwanda’s ability to diagnose and treat COVID-19 patients, the construction of hand-washing stations across Rwanda, public communications campaigns to fight COVID-19, staff and vehicles for contact tracing, laboratory diagnostic equipment and supplies, training of frontline workers, medical equipment, and infection prevention and control supplies.
The United States provided more than $28 million to Rwanda to fight and respond to the pandemic and reached 351 health facilities, 21 district hospitals, two referral hospitals, and two provincial hospitals, while renovating three hospitals to create COVID-19 isolation and treatment centers. With the support of the United States, Rwanda became one of the first sub-Saharan Africa countries to achieve the global target of 70 percent vaccination by mid-2022.
