Ghana is using delivery drones from US-based startup Zipline to enable it to test people for Coronavirus more quickly outside major cities. In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Zipline will operate fleets of drones in Ghana and Rwanda to deliver blood, vaccines and other essential medical equipment to rural areas.
“Using contactless drone delivery to transport Covid-19 test samples will allow the government to respond to the pandemic and help save lives more quickly,” said Zipline Chief Executive Keller Rinaudo.
Zipline tested its first coronavirus test flight on April 1 and will now fly samples collected from more than 1,000 health facilities in rural areas to laboratories in the capital Accra and to Kumasi. As of April 15, the Ghana Health Service said it had tested 57,000 coronavirus samples.
The company said using drones would cut the delivery time for test samples from hours, with trucks needing to traverse rural roads to collect tests from multiple hospitals to under an hour in some cases. They will operate the service daily for the duration of the Government’s Covid-19 response efforts.
