As Ebola cases surge in the neighboring Uganda, Rwanda has stepped up its measures to prepare and combat the pandemic, as well as heightening vigilance for other pandemics that might arise later.

The Ministry of Health has set up Nyamata Mobile Clinic, particularly for any pandemic that requires more medical efforts.

Located in Bugesera district, the mobile clinic opened its doors in March 2022, receiving the last patients of the Covid-19 Omicron variant.

With a capacity to receive 80 patients and 30 in a critical condition, the clinic is particularly reserved for outbreaks.

Nyamata Mobile Clinic is built on a 2-hectares land area and is made up of different rooms that will be used to treat the patients.

These include the surgery room, maternity room, pediatric room, dialysis room, a laboratory, pharmacy, incinerator, oxygen and water treatment plants.

According to Dr. William Rutagengwa, the Director General of Nyamata hospital which oversees the clinic, the latter is crucial in times where the world’s health systems are battling different pandemics.

“This is a very crucial moment to scale up our readiness, as we have an outbreak in our neighboring countries. General hospitals might be overwhelmed by the intensity of an outbreak, and hence a special center like this would chip in,” he commented on the clinic.

The clinic has all the needed staff from the rapid response team who are ready to receive patients in case a pandemic erupts in Rwanda who include medical doctors, nurses, biomedical technicians and others.

Dr. Daniel Ngamije, the minister of health also assures that this is one of the strategies to enhance the preparedness of Ebola outbreak and other pandemics in general.

“This center is among our preparations against the Ebola outbreak, this center can receive 30 critical patients and many others who are not critical. But we have other measures on airports and borders, we take a critical consideration on those crossing the borders to ensure our country is safe,” he revealed.

Apart from this clinic, Rwanda has taken other measures to fight the Ebola outbreak: Screening teams have been deployed to all borders neighboring Uganda, the Ministry has also decentralized testing sites at some districts and isolation centers for red contacts are set to be built in each district.