Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said as of September 2021, each of the medical drone centers has an average of 100 flights a day to deliver medicines and blood and delivered 3 million doses of routine vaccines to rural areas since 2020.
He said 130,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were delivered to rural Ghana and Delivery Covid samples for testing.
Vice President Bawumia made this known when he delivered a public lecture on how Ghana’s economy was being digitalized, held at the Ashesi University on Tuesday night.
He said many lives have been saved as a result of the medical drones and In addition, the Ghana Health Service has made significant financial savings as a result of the Zipline drone delivery program which has reduced theft in medical stores.
“Interestingly, the US government has only recently contracted Zipline to also start the delivery of medical supplies by drones in the United States after Rwanda and Ghana took the lead. Hospitals and clinics in remote and largely rural communities have a difficult time getting medical supplies especially in times of emergencies involving, for example, snake bites, child birth, blood supplies, floods, etc. Many lives are needlessly lost because the hospitals are unable to access critically needed supplies on time. To address this problem, Ghana opted to partner with Zipline, the world’s largest automated on-demand delivery service for medical supplies. ”
The vice president said “Ghana was the second country in Africa (after Rwanda) to implement the delivery of medical supplies to remote areas through drones, with four Distribution Centers (DC) in Omenako, Mpanya, Vobsi, and Sefwi Wiawso. Two additional centers will become operational in December this year at Anum in the Eastern region (to cover all of the Afram Plains and 90% of the Volta region) and Kete-Krachi in the Oti region to cover all districts in the Oti Region, 3 districts in the Bono East Region (Pru East District, Sene East District, Sene West District) and North East Gonja District of the Savannah Region. The next two distribution centers will be located in Funsi (Upper West) and Kintampo (Bono) in 2022. This will bring Zipline coverage to virtually the whole of Ghana. ”
“It is important to note that Ghana currently has the largest medical drone delivery service in the world! What is even more impressive is that the drone centers are 100% manned by young talented Ghanaians?”
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Kofi Atakora
