Rwanda says it will soon upgrade its testing capacity to be able to trace the new variants of the coronavirus in the country.

Despite expanding the country's testing capabilities in terms of the number of daily specimens tested, testing the new variants of the virus in place has not yet started.

This is despite the Kigali International Airport remaining open. The new variant of Covid-19, which has been identified in South Africa and the United Kingdom among other places, is believed to be more transmissible at 70 percent and concern is rising that the new strains may be more deadly than the original virus.

“We haven’t yet tested and identified a new variant… We are still working on this capability, and soon, we will be having it in place,” said Daniel Ngamije, Rwanda's Minister of Health on national television.

Rwanda has resumed mass testing in its latest effort to curb rising Covid-19 infections and deaths across the country.

On January 25, the country reported three deaths, 336 cases of the 7,867 tests done.