One of four people who were discharged from a novel coronavirus treatment centre salutes staff of the facility before leaving on Sunday (1).Three more people were discharged today. / File

Rwanda on Tuesday, April 7, confirmed the recovery of three more COVID-19 patients.

The Ministry of Health also reported that there were no new cases recorded in the country out of the 806 samples that were tested.

The development brings the total number of fully recovered patients to seven, as the number of confirmed positive cases remain at 105 with no reported death so far.

Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, Director-General of Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) told The New Times that all recovered patients must test negative twice in a 24 hour interval.

"The decision of discharging someone who has been COVID-19 positive follows a careful protocol: the person must test negative twice and consecutively within 24hrs. Then another 14 days of self isolation at home is mandatory. This is because we need to ensure maximum immune system recovery and virus completely out of the body," Dr. Nsanzimana explained.

The Ministry noted that all patients are now being treated in designated health facilities and that none of them is in critical condition.

On Sunday, April 5, the first recoveries ever since Rwanda confirmed the first COVID-19 case were discharged.

The four men, three Rwandans and one Burundian, who had been admitted to the Kanyinya health facility, were discharged after testing negative twice, according to the Ministry of Health.

Call of complacency

Despite the good news, however, the Minister of Health Dr. Daniel Ngamije in a recent virtual news conference urged anyone who shows COVID-19 symptoms to urgently call toll-free line 114.

The minister also warned against stigmatising those that had been discharged.

As the number of confirmed cases surge, the Government has taken several measures to curb the spread of the virus, the recent one being extending the COVID-19 lockdown to 15 more days to April 19.

Globally, coronavirus cases have risen to more than 1, 407,123, while the death toll now stands at more than 80,750, in 184 countries

eashimwe@newtimesrwanda.com