Critical medical supplies, a text and a quick hop away in Ghana

Beyond the main cities, many challenges abound on the continent; roads may be poor to nonexistent, cellular services and other amenities unreliable. Health facilities too are often few and far apart, and because of the aforementioned challenges, may not be properly stocked to help you should you fall ill.

It is because of the confluence of such factors that every now and then you hear ‘odd’ news, such as malaria outbreaks in Kenya or Burundi; it’s odd because malaria is endemic, and most people are also acquainted with its symptoms. A person with fever and chills should rush to the nearest health facility, get tested and be put on treatment.

But most of these facilities lack the resources to handle such issues, on account of their distance from commercial hubs.

It is a challenge that has plagued many a remote center, and Ghana has been implementing a solution that is encouraging.

Drones.

Through the Fly to save a life project, Ghana has been using drones to deliver medicines, vaccines, and blood products to remote health facilities.

The project started in April 2019, as a partnership between the Ministry of Health and Zipline, an American company which had already been involved in a similar endeavor in Rwanda.

The initiative has been supported by organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Vaccine Alliance, and GAVI.

Zipline has established distribution centers, doubling as drone hubs, where these critical medical supplies are stocked; these centralized locations reduce operational costs for remote hospitals, which don’t have to worry about issues such as vaccines going bad due to a lack of refrigeration.

The drones operate within a radius of about 80 kilometers, as their range is double that; they can fly at 100kph, so deliveries can be made in under an hour. It can carry a payload of 1.75 kilograms.

Distribution Centers

The first such hub to be opened was in the town of Omenako in the Eastern Region. At its launch, it was revealed that this hub would supply 148 assorted medical supplies-antivenom, blood components, hormones, and vaccines. All these and more, a text or a call away.

There are four centers- besides Omenako, there’s a distribution center in Mampong (for Ashanti Region), Kukua (North Eastern Region) and Wiawso (Western North Region). It is at these hubs that some built infrastructure is needed; the drone doesn’t need to land at its destination. The drone consignment is airdropped and a parachute opens up to ensure the consignment lands as gently as possible.

Even the drones have parachutes, meant to be deployed in an emergency; so far, the drone service has suffered one reported drone crash.

Each center can make 500 flights a day, but the current aim is for 600 daily deliveries to 2,000 health facilities for the four centers.

As of February, the Zipline drones had delivered some 2,000 pints of blood, and had undertaken over 4,000 flights across Ghana. In Rwanda, it has conducted 13,000 deliveries so far, so the trajectory in Ghana is on course.

For now, the greatest downside to this program is probably the cost; the government paid some $12 million to Zipline to get this service for the next four years.

It’s an amount that could be used for other projects according to its critics; it could for instance but some 40 fully equipped British ambulances.

But then again, assuming such ambulances are all dedicated to individual health centers, the Omenako center alone covered 52 centers at the start of the project; the drones can’t carry people, but at least they can make sure all the critical, time sensitive medical supplies are within easy reach.

Africa Global News Publication