Pulse.ng : Drone delivery coy committed to transporting medical products to hard-to-reach medical facilities in Kaduna

Zipline Operations Manager (Nigeria), Pharm. Samuel Noma, answering
questions from newsmen at the company’s site in Pamgeguwa, Kubau LGA in Kaduna

By Sani Idris

The Kaduna State Government in February 2021 signed a Memorandum
of Understanding with a U.S.-based medical product delivery company, Zipline, in its efforts to address logistic issues and
improve delivery of medical supplies to hard-to-reach areas.

Zipline is an American company that designs, manufactures and operates delivery drones. The company operates distribution
centres in Rwanda, Ghana, Japan, the United States, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya.

As of September 2023, its drones have made more than 750,000 commercial deliveries and flown more than 40 million autonomous miles.

The company’s drones deliver whole blood, platelets, frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate, along with medical products, including vaccines,
infusions and common medical commodities..

Zipline receives medical supplies from the Kaduna State Health Supplies Management Agency at their warehouse for proper inspection,
scanned and labeled with an identification name and expiry dates.

The company also receives drugs and vaccines and keep aside, waiting for orders that come through a call centre that handles requests
from healthcare facilities.

Such orders are then arranged in a package box with a parachute to safely land at the destination.

Also, the ID of order being transported will be scanned by flight operators to determine the location of the medication or vaccine for delivery and
the parcel is loaded onto the drone, while the operator gets it to fly for delivery.

The drones, which can fly to their destination with no control, are connected to Global Positioning System (GPS) and communicates with all
the drones in operational flight.

The drones have four components, namely: battery, nose cone, wing and body, required to propel, maintain balance in air, data and connectivity interaction.

During a field visit to the Zipline operations base in Pamgeguwa, Kubau Local Government Area of Kaduna on Thursday, the company’s
Operations Manager (Nigeria), Samuel Noma, said the company’s presence has reduced maternal, infant and young children mortality in hard to reach areas of the state.’

He added that since Zipline started operations in August 2022, it delivered more than 10,000 vital medicines and vaccines to most hard-to-reach health
centres within five and 45 minutes of order.

Noma said Zipline has reduced delays in drugs/vaccine deliveries to rural facilities, where personnel hitherto had to go long miles to buy medical supplies,
leaving patients unattended to or waiting for service due to unavailability of handy medical supplies.

The operations manager, who said that Zipline also operates in Bayelsa and Cross River, explained that the company makes deliveries
to 291 medical facilities across 12 local government areas of Kaduna State.

He said one of the reasons for Zipline’s emergence in Kaduna was insecurity and unavailability of storage facilities for some thermolabile and
sensitive medications like vaccines.

“We coming in, we try to centralise and warehouse those medications, and when any facility needs it, at instance of a call, we quickly deliver,” he said.

Mr Jeremiah Dunah, Zipline’s Head of Flight Operations

Also, Mr Jeremiah Dunah, the Head of Flight Operations, disclosed that Zipline drones travel at a speed of 100 kilometres per hour.

He, however, said that if the wind is too strong, the drone would warn the flight operator to monitor the situation or to avoid flying that route.

“The drones use two GPS and backup networks; connectivity issues are something else that could be a real problem. In this case, the drones can
make autonomous decisions and could return to the operations office when something doesn’t go well,” Dunah said.

Subsequently, a visit to a health facility at Hayin Gada Nasaru, Pamgeguwa, Kubau Local Government Area, one of the drones was practically seen
delivering medical supplies to the facility.

The Second in Charge at the facility, Tasi’u Abdullahi, who picked up the delivery, said that when the health centre requests drugs and vaccines, they
are delivered in short period, contrary to the long delays experienced when such requests were submitted to the Kaduna State Health Supplies
Management Agency before the arrival of Zipline.

He added that “before Zipline came, it was often difficult to re-stock supplies, which always takes longer than expected.

“Now that the health centre is working with Zipline, we simply place orders, and the deliveries are sent to us in record time. The supply of
drugs has improved healthcare service delivery in the our locality.” (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)