Kigali 30 January 2021 - The Government of Rwanda has taken note of the UK Government announcement banning visitors who have been in, or transited through, Rwanda.

Rwanda’s overall response to COVID-19 including testing, surveillance, contact tracing, containment, treatment and reporting has been consistent, transparent and corroborated by third party entities.

Rwanda is one of the few countries that require a PCR COVID-19 test for all departing passengers and all those in transit.

Notably, Rwanda did not join in the widespread bans on travellers from UK in December 2020 over the variant discovered in parts of the UK.

Considering the list of countries in the region affected and not affected by the ban, the sparse information communicated to Rwanda does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.

The Government of Rwanda looks forward to receiving clarifications on the motivations behind this arbitrary decision of the UK Government.

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