Rwanda on Sunday announced it has discovered South African and UK strains of COVID-19 in the country.
Minister of Health, Daniel Ngamije announced in a televised address and confirmed that the strains were found in international visitors to their country.
While only two people were found positive for the UK strain, ten people were found carrying the highly transmissible South African strain.
The country has since isolated the cases to limit the spread of the virus and said there are no confirmations as to the community transmission of the strains yet.
Health workers in the country are aware of the events in the country and are set to begin contact tracing of the patients infected with the virus.
COVID-19 has been mutating over time with three different variants discovered in South Africa (B.1.1.7), United Kingdom (B.1.351) and Brazil (P.1) at varying levels of transmission.
Rwanda has so far recorded almost 21,000 cases with 290 deaths reported since the virus was first discovered.
More than 300,000 persons have so far been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the country. Rwanda was the first African country to receive Pfizer vaccines through the COVAX facility.
