Burundi begins mass COVID-19 screening

BUJUMBURA, Burundi

Burundi on Monday launched a COVID-19 mass screening exercise after the new government shifted the country’s policy on the pandemic.

The East African nation had largely remained non-responsive over the pandemic, but the incumbent President Evariste ndayishimiye’s administration has taken a different approach.

Under the theme “I won’t get infected and propagate COVID-19,” the screening exercise was launched in three centers in the north, center and south of Bujumbura.

Health Minister Thaddee Ndikumana said the government is keen to curb the spread of the disease in the country.

“With this campaign we are working to provide access to screening for those people could not in the past and we feel that now is the time that we can work together on this problem,” he said. “This is the wish of the government.”

Burundi has so far reported 191 COVID-19 infections and 1 death, according to data from the U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

Ndikumana said people visiting patients at hospitals must “be supplied with masks and health personnel be equipped with protective masks.” He also said that taxi drivers should clean seats and that passengers should wear masks.

He said, however, that the country will not participate in vaccine trials. “Burundi cannot accept that its people constitute a sample of experimentation,” he said.