Kaduna State government in collaboration with Zipline has signed partnership with the World’s first medical drone delivery service to convey routine and emergency medicine to parts of the state.
In a press statement issued at Sir Kashim Ibrahim’s House after the groundbreaking ceremony, it read that, the revolutionary new service will use drones to make on-demand deliveries of hundreds of different vaccines, blood products, and life-saving medications.
The service will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from three distribution centers; each equipped with 30 drones and delivered to more than 1,000 health facilities across the State.
According to the statement, all three distribution centers will have the capability of micro-targeting the delivery of over six tons of medical products each week.
Using drones to save lives
The statement noted that the service which is expected to launch operations in the second quarter of 2021, is part of government’s vision of using drones to save lives and distribute medicines to citizens.
It read : ’’in addition to expanding access to routine and emergency medical deliveries, the new drone delivery service will also expand access to the COVID-19 vaccine, particularly for rural and hard to reach populations.
“Zipline has built an end-to-end cold chain distribution capability that allows it to safely deliver frozen and ultra-low COVID-19 vaccines and medical products.”
The statement also quoted Governor Nasiru El-Rufai giving assurance that his administration’s focus is to deliver one of the best public healthcare systems in Nigeria.
“While we celebrate our successes, we must also recognise that we have much more work to do to create universal access to critical healthcare for all… The agreement with Zipline builds on and adds value to our initiatives to strengthen the capacity of the Kaduna State health system,” the governor said.
He adds that the new emergency drone delivery service is a great solution to delivering vaccines, blood and other lifesaving products instantly across the State.
Lateefah Ibrahim
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