These Drones Deliver Medical Goods to Remote Countries

A self-sufficient technology company using drones to deliver medical and medicinal blood products plans on expanding its shipment radius to reach West African countries – starting with Nigeria – to provide them with much-needed supplies efficiently.

“Using a hub and spoke model (such as distribution centers,) drone operators are able to position strategically and improve physical access to reach a larger percentage of the population that may have otherwise been difficult to reach,” says Remi Adeseun, the director for Africa at Salient Advisory, a healthcare markets consultancy.

Zipline has been delivering blood products – and, as of recently, other medical supplies including medicines – to 21 Rwandan hospitals since 2016, reducing the delivery time from 4 hours by road to 20 minutes by drones since they fly at 100 km per hour. So far, the company has made 200,000 commercial deliveries to more than 2,000 hospitals in Rwanda, Ghana, and the United States. The northern state of Kaduna, Nigeria, has been added to the company’s delivery route, in the hopes of eventually bringing supplies to West African countries where only 30% of roads are paved. The company has three distribution centers with 30 drones each to deliver products to 1,000 health facilities serving the state’s population of a million citizens.