Use of Technologies in COVID-19 Containment in Rwanda

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged from Wuhan, China at the end of December 2019 and was thought to be an unknown pneumonia that was causing acute severe respiratory distress and respiratory failure in some patients as well as other complications. Later on, the disease showed high virulence and rapid transmission from person to person. WHO declared the disease as pandemic when the spread was affecting most countries. Different modes of technologies combined with prevention strategies were conceived to minimize the rate of transmission in Rwanda. Technology solutions that are mainly used in Rwanda include: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics for patient managements and data recording in hospitals, drones in broadcasting appropriate information in regards to COVID-19 symptoms and strategies for prevention, geolocalized hotspot mapping used for contact tracing, and self-testing of unstructured supplementary services data (USSD) easily accessed by dialing *114#. This outbreak report paper discusses the use of technology in the control and surveillance of the COVID-19 pandemic in Rwanda context.