Rwanda

Vaccination campaign

Although Rwanda has not had an Ebola outbreak, due to its proximity to DRC and the high levels of cross border travel between DRC and Rwanda the country has enacted Ebola preparedness activities.

Rwanda launched their “Umurinzi” vaccination campaign utilising the J&J vaccine in December 2019, at the same time as DRC, marking the first ever cross border vaccination campaign.

In Rwanda, the EBODAC consortium, has supported the procurement and deployment of Biometric kits (see description below) which are used to identify participants during their clinic visits and for data management.

*EBODAC uses a unique biometric kit that scans the eyes of volunteers and takes their finger prints, so that participants can be easily identified throughout the trial period and identified during their clinic visits.

EBODAC Tools

Local Rwandan Non-Governmental Organisation, Rinda Ubuzima has been mandated by the Ministry of Health to lead on all community activities under the Umurinzi vaccination campaign. EBODAC has been working with Rinda Ubuzima to develop community engagement tools, support the development of the community engagement strategy and its implementation and to adapt the MOTECH (see description below) platform to support the continuous engagement of participants and recall them for their 2nd dose of the vaccine.

In support of Rinda Ubuzima, EBODAC has provided technical trainings on the use of several EBODAC tools (including EBODAC community engagement materials) and shared lessons learned by seconding staff from the clinical trials in Sierra Leone to Rwanda. In addition, Community Health Workers (CHWs) involved in the mobilization of communities for the vaccine, have been trained using MOTS (see description below).

*The MOTECH platform supports clinical trial teams to effectively recall participants to receive the second dose of the prime-boost vaccine regimen or attend scheduled clinic visits. It has been successfully deployed and adapted to the needs of a multilingual population with a high rate of illiteracy and a lack of familiarity with clinical trials

*The MOTS (Mobile Training and Support) platform aims to strengthen the training provided to Community Health Workers. Interactive training modules were developed in line with the national health curriculum to provide community health workers with refresher training on vaccines and emergency response practices through an interactive voice response (IVR) system. Training materials are delivered to the mobile phones of remote workers as audio files in local languages, in order to make the training as effective as possible and accessible even to those with limited literacy. CHW’s can listen to the training materials in their own time, giving them greater flexibility in their learning and reducing the burden on the Ministry of Health to organize physical trainings.