Rwanda’s health ministry with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has purchased five hi-tech robots to be used at hospitals to help control the spread of coronavirus.
The robots were designed by a Belgian robotics company, Zora Bots and cost $3,300 each. They are outfitted with speech recognition technology and they can perform various tasks, including temperature screening, delivering food and medication to patients, capturing data and detecting if people don’t wear masks.
“These robots will reduce the risk of exposure to Covid-19 among health workers and facilitate the transition from paper-based patient files to digital records,” said Sabin Nsanzimana, Director General of the Rwanda Biomedical Center.
According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control, “Rwanda, known to be at the forefront of technological innovation in Africa, has only recorded 320 cases of Covid-19 so far and no deaths”.
