Oct 25, 2024

Zipline’s Medical Drone Flying to improve medical deliveries in Nigeria. - Copyright © africanews In a bid to improve healthcare delivery, the Nigerian   government has partned with US-based drone technology company Zipline to enhance healthcare access using advanced drone delivery systems. The drone delivery company which has presence in five African countries to deliver hospital materials in hard-to-reach areas in Africa. Senior Vice president on partnership, Caitlin Burton, says Nigeria has a huge population, with some significant health indicators that can be addressed. “Zipline infrastructure is meant to cover entire geography and when we can do that, we make sure that we are truly equalizing health care services for everyone, doing that state by state in Nigeria could take a long time and it also puts a big burden on the state to negotiate contract by contract in service delivery. The goal of going to the National level and working with the Federal Ministry of health is to make it easier for states to adopt these infrastructures,” she added. Burton says they have been able to cover almost the entire population in Rwanda and Ghana and are working on expanding a national infrastructure in Cote D’ Ivoire, Nigeria and Kenya. “You have some very tech minded innovation focused modernizing leaders in different states of Nigeria and the goal now is to move to the National level and turn in international infrastructure, so we are not just going to state by state but we can make it easier for all the states to adopt the infrastructure,” she said. Director of Sales and partnership, Zipline, Gbolayan Fagbure says in terms of health access, we try to ensure that it is equalized across Nigeria irrespective of income and location. “Currently we are working with three states and if we are able to expand that to multiple states over the next few years and if we are able to do that, we will have a health care population that is prosperous, able to engage in economic activities either in urban or rural areas,” he said. Some members of the community in North Central Nigeria say they welcome the activities of Zipline as it has impacted their wellbeing in terms of health care delivery. “We are grateful for this company; it is a blessing to our community. They have been with us for the past two years and we have had a peaceful relationship. We have had a good working relationship with the company, the community and the people and the medical supplies they give us has helped us and we are grateful,” said  Abdullahi Idris, a community head. In April 2024, the company made history with one million autonomous deliveries to real customers and currently completes one every second. In Nigeria, they are partnering to deliver over 1.5 million vaccine doses, reaching thousands of zero-dose children. The drone company began its medical logistics deliveries to remote hospitals and medical facilities in Kaduna, Nigeria in June 2022 and has since then expanded to two other states. Zipline which operates on three continents (North America, Africa and Asia) has presence in seven countries- Rwanda, Ghana, the US, Nigeria, Japan, Kenya and Cote D Ivoire. The company works with Walmart, Pfizer, Toyota, NGOs and some other large health systems and government agencies around the world.