Ministry Of Health, Zipline Medical Drone 'Fly-To-Save-A-Life' To Launch

The Ministry of Health (MoH) in conjunction with Zipline is set to launch the much awaited landmark Medical Drone 'Fly-To-Save-A-Life' project meant to give Ghana's healthcare a massive facelift through advanced technology.

Ghana has adopted the technology to use medical drones to deliver medicines, non-medical consumables, blood and blood products.

The service will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. GHS has selected 148 lifesaving medical products to be stocked at Zipline's four distribution centers nationwide. Zipline will guarantee delivery of those products upon request to any of the thousands of health facilities served.

Each of the four distribution centers will be staffed by a team of 35 Ghanaian engineers and logistics personnel, equipped with at least 20 drones. Together, all four distribution centers will be capable of making at least 600 on-demand delivery flights a day. The drones can carry 1.75 kilos of cargo, cruising at 110 kilometers an hour, and have an all-weather round trip range of 160 kilometers.

Zipline is an automated logistics company based in California. The company—which includes seasoned aerospace veterans from teams like SpaceX, Google, Boeing, and NASA—designs and operates an autonomous system for delivering lifesaving medicine to the world's most difficult to reach places.

Zipline's mission is to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies. The most respected investors in the world support Zipline, including Goldman Sachs, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, GV, TPG Capital, Toyota Tsusho, Temasek, Subtraction Capital, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, and Stanford University.

According to the Ministry of Health and Zipline Medical Drones, every citizen should support such a critical life-saving project.

Just last week, the Planning Committee for the launch of the Fly-To-Save-A-Life Zipline Medical Drone, had a meeting to plan towards a successful launch of the project.

On April 11, the committee toured the Zipline Medical Drone Distribution Center in Omenako near Suhum, Eastern Region. This is a pre-launch activity by the committee to ensure a well organized launch of the project (Commissioning of the 1st Distribution Centre) on 24th April, 2019.

The committee observed a successful first real time delivery of INSULIN INJECTION 100i.u. to New TAFO Hospital by Zipline ( under the Medical Drone Delivery Program)

The committee is chaired by Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, Director General for the Ghana Health Service.

Other members of the committee are :

Nhyira Yawson, Secretary

Daniel Marfo, Zipline

William Yamoah, Office of VEEP

Inua Yusuf, MOH

Elorm Ametepe, MOH

Douglas Adu-Fokuo, GHS