On Wednesday, 03 March 2021, Rwanda received 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It thus became the first country in Africa to receive the vaccine developed jointly by the American and German laboratories.
Rwanda received 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday at Kigali airport. An order in addition to the 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine received earlier on Wednesday. “Our goal is to make vaccines globally accessible and today’s delivery to Rwanda is a big step forward,” Pfizer said in a statement.
A Rwandan Ministry of Health official explained that the doses of this vaccine, which must be kept at very low temperatures, had been “transported to cold rooms” upon arrival at Kigali airport. The total of 340,000 doses received on Wednesday will be delivered from a biomedical warehouse to hospitals in the sector and hundreds of health centres across the country. They will start to be administered as of Friday. The Ministry of Health plans to vaccinate approximately 171,500 people, including health workers, seniors and/or those with comorbidities, on a priority basis.
Rwanda began its vaccination campaign for health workers in February. The country acquired 1,000 doses of the vaccine developed by the US laboratory Moderna.According to Health Minister Daniel Ngamije, the authorities plan to vaccinate 30% of the population this year and 60% by the end of 2022. “We will immediately implement our vaccination plan, which will allow at-risk groups to receive the first of two doses of vaccine throughout Rwanda,” he said in a statement.
