Drones Are Now Being Used To Deliver Covid-19 Vaccines

Drones are playing a critical role in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic: delivering vaccines to communities that need them the most.

Though most news coverage centered on vaccine inaccessibility has only discussed the sheer lack of availability in many countries due to production limitations or price points, very little discussion has occurred regarding the actual logistical challenges of physically delivering vaccines.

Zipline, a drone delivery service, is tackling this problem head-on by utilizing its experience and innovative technology to help deliver Covid-19 coronavirus vaccines to remote areas. Late last month, Gavi, an international organization which aims to increase vaccine equity worldwide, reported that Zipline has partnered with the Government of Ghana to help deliver the much-anticipated COVAX vaccines (COVAX is a global initiative supported by the World Health Organization that is “Working for global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines”).

The report describes how Zipline, in conjunction with UPS which is providing critical ground transportation of the vaccines, has been using its autonomous medical delivery drones and strategically placed “nests” (which are bases for the drones to launch and land) to help distribute vaccines across the country.

Author of the article Maya Prabhu describes, “When the drones reach their destination – whether it is a health facility or a remote out-reach vaccination centre – rather than landing, they instead lower their altitude to release their payload from the air. This then parachutes to the ground, landing safely and accurately in a landing zone roughly three metres wide.”

Zipline has played a crucial role in Ghana’s health infrastructure, especially as it provided much needed support for Covid-19 testing in rural areas at the height of the pandemic.

The video below illustrates Zipline’s work in Rwanda, where it similarly assisted with critical healthcare access initiatives.

This isn’t the first time that drones have been considered for medical purposes. Late last Fall, I wrote about pharmaceutical giant Merck’s partnership with drone technology company Volansi, aimed at creating an efficient way to deliver routine medications from manufacturing facilities to end-users.

The reason for increased interest in harnessing this technology is relatively straightforward. The idea of potentially using drones to deliver medications and vaccines paints a promising picture in resolving rural health inequities, as well as potential cost-savings. As stated in a previous Forbes article by Bruce Y. Lee, advanced simulation models have indicated: “under a reasonably wide range of conditions, drones can provide cost savings (between 20% to 50%) over using traditional land-based transport to move vaccines to health facilities, and these savings are highly dependent on the size of the population served by the limited radius of the drones, road conditions for the land-based transport, and the relative speed of transport.”

Of course, the most important caveat with all of these aspects is that the technological challenges are fully resolved. Vaccine distribution has never been an easy logistical challenge, given that vaccines are very sensitive to temperature changes, are often delicate, and may require extensive infrastructure and trained professionals to actually administer to patients. Storing and distributing the Covid-19 vaccines is especially difficult, as some of them require ultra-cold storage and other specific distribution parameters.

However, if the general technology challenges, regulatory hurdles, and implementation difficulties can be resolved in a way that does not compromise patient-safety, the inculcation of drone technology in healthcare delivery infrastructure may potentially have a promising future.

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