Effective from Friday, March 20th, no flight will be taking off or landing in Rwanda as the small East African nation moves to contain the deadly coronavirus and flatten its curve.
On Wednesday, Rwanda ministry of Health announced all arriving and departing commercial passenger flights, including RwandAir, will be halted beginning at midnight on Friday, 20 March 2020 for an initial period of 30 days. Only cargo and emergency flights will operate.
On Thursday Rwandair complied with the directive and posted a statement on its social pages temporarily stopping all flights for 30 days.
Rwanda’s move is informed by the fact that all the coronavirus cases in the country were from inbound travelers.
So far the number of infected persons stand at 11. The three new patients who tested positive for Coronavirus were tested the same day were travelers from other countries.
According to the ministry of Health, all confirmed coronavirus patients remain under treatment in stable conditions, isolated from other patients and the tracing of all contacts has been conducted for further management.
On Wednesday, World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Africa should wake up and prepare for the worst.
“I think Africa should wake up. My continent should wake up,” said Ghebreyesus, who hails from Ethiopia.
South Africa is now the continent’s new focus of concern after Covid-19) cases nearly doubled to 116 from two days before.
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