Rwanda uses robots to protect doctors, who treat COVID-19 patients through minimising contact, Health Minister Daniel Ngamije said on Thursday.

Ngamije said this at a news conference in Moscow.

“We have some health personnel who have been infected with COVID-19.

“I think there are less than 10 because we deployed all the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) measures and different measures were taken to avoid that health personnel be contaminated with this disease.

“We also use robots to reduce contact of health personnel with patients, those robots are helping us to collect some information, temperature and other information, treatment standards.

“So, basically we do not have a big issue of health personnel affected by COVID-19 so far,” Ngamije said.

World Health Organisation Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti added that around 35,000 health care workers were infected with COVID-19 in Africa, most of them (24,000) in South Africa.

Moeti also said that the WHO was deploying more than 40 regional experts to South Africa to provide assistance.

According to Moeti, Africa has recorded slightly less that 1 million COVID-19 cases so far and over 20,000 people on the continent have lost their lives due to the virus.