By Sam Abuya
As the deadly COVID-19 continues to sweep across the world, Rwanda has yet again taken a step ahead of its peers in Africa by launching robots that will help the country’s health workers in fighting the highly contagious coronavirus.
The five robots, which have since all been given Rwandan names, were unveiled Tuesday in a public ceremony and are set to help reduce the amount of exposure that health workers are normally subjected to in fighting the coronavirus in the East African country.
According to Rwandan Health Minister Dr. Daniel Ngamije, the robots will, among other things, deliver medication, food and help test the temperatures for between 50 and 150 people in one minute.
Additionally, the robots have the ability to tell if people have their face masks on or not and, if not, they also are able to remind or warn them to put on the masks.
Reliable media reports indicate that a Belgium company developed the robots for Rwanda at a tune of £2,700. Staff at the health ministry are expected to take at least one month to be trained on how to operate the robots which are now called Mwiza, Ikizere, Akazuba, Urumuri and Ngabo.
“We need additional robots for other duties like disinfection in public space, and we are working to get them,” the health minister said.
The coronavirus has continued to spread across Africa with at least 88,000 people having tested positive to the virus according to the African Centre for Disease Control which is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
This comes as the Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based rights groups, accused Rwanda last month over what it termed as “mounting reports abuses by the Rwandan security services” during the country’s COVID-19 lockdown.
The rights groups alleged that several Rwandan women were raped by security personnel.
