Medical drones take off to save lives in Rwanda. Zipline International reinvented the drone to distribute medical supplies in certain areas of Africa, especially rural areas.
The Use of Drones
The service of the drone will make up to 150 deliveries of blood each day to cater for hard-to-reach communities in rural Rwanda. Postpartum hemorrhage is the most common cause of death among pregnant women in Rwanda. It is a sickness defined as the loss of more than 500 ml or 1,000 ml of blood within the first 24 hours following childbirth.
Speaking at the launch on Friday 14 October, President Paul Kagame highlighted the importance of using this technology.
Drones are very useful, both commercially and for improving services in the health sector. We are happy to be launching this innovative technology and to continue working with partners to develop it further.
Starting The Use of Drones
San Francisco-based Zipline International intends to begin using its new airplane-style drones in late July to fly blood to rural Rwandan clinics hindered by obstructed roadways and limited storage facilities. While trying to keep up with an acute need for emergency transfusions, particularly during childbirth. With the country's blood banks struggling to forecast demand, Zipline International offers a simple solution, that is, to centralize the system into two distribution centers that place every health clinic in the small African nation only a less than an hour drone-delivery flight away.
"We've been trying to solve this problem for 50 years, using traditional forms of technology like trucks and motorcycles in environments that don't have the necessary infrastructure for those vehicles to work," says Keller Rinaudo, Zipline's cofounder. So why not take to the skies instead?
"This avoids the risk of recipients getting in the way of rotating blades," said Dr. Ravi Vaidyanathan, from Imperial College London.
"So long as there is no prospect of a plane falling from the sky and there is no danger posed by a package dropping on to anyone, then this sounds like a positive environment to begin drone deliveries."
