Tanzania plans to use drones to deliver heath aids to designated destinations
In a bid to save the lives of people that die in Tanzania due to absence of medical facilities or the delay in delivering them to where they might urgently be needed, Tanzania has chosen to use drones to make distribution of heath aids much easier and readily available.
Tanzania for now plans on hiring the California drone company which will be effective in 2018, according to the sources.
The company, as reports have shown, will help curb the challenge through using 120 drones to distributing up to 2,000 deliveries of blood, vaccination, medications among others.
The California based company is in partnership with Zipline that deals in designing and operating drone delivery networks, under the project called “the world’s largest national drone delivery network.”
The network will initially begin with four distribution centers with one of them situated in Dodoma, the country’s capital.
It is stated that each center will have 30 drones, which each one can carry 1.5 kilograms of cargo and travel on approximately 100-mile round trips and fly at around 70 miles per hour.
According to Keller Rinaudo, the company’s chief executive, the project will help the government reach medical supplies to the hospitals on time and save many people’s lives.
“Our goal is to completely eliminate stock-outs, an issue which has been one of the biggest challenges in global public health for the past 50 years,” Rinaudo was quoted saying.
Laurean Bwanakunu, the director general of Tanzania’s medical stores department in appreciation said that the drone network would help see to the end of difficulties and complications of unexpected demand and bad weather.
“Using drones for just-in-time deliveries will allow us to provide health facilities with complete access to vital medical products no matter the circumstances,” Bwanakunu, was reported saying.
According to the explained drone movement, the drone will be assigned a destination to reach. As it passes by the area, it descends closer to the ground and drops the delivery in to the designated spot.
In October 2016, Rwanda welcomed and started using this similar Zipline programme and it is reported that drones conduct 1,400 flights and deliver 2,600 units of blood to hospitals and clinics.
Correspondent: Shamilah Namuddu