For several years, Rwanda has been experimenting with transporting emergency blood supplies by drone, and a study now shows that this solution can be much faster than travelling by car.
The Rwandan government has had a contract with the US startup Zipline for blood deliveries by drone since 2016. Today, Zipline has two centers in the country, each capable of making up to 500 deliveries per day. With a strong presence in Africa, Zipline is also involved in the distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine in Ghana. In the US, Zipline helps deliver medicines and even defibrillators as quickly as possible.
A study published in The Lancet00048-1/) has found that the delivery of blood supplies by drone is particularly well suited to a country like Rwanda, where the overwhelming majority of people live far from any medical facility. Whether it's for emergency situations like road accidents, blood loss in new mothers or anemic children, many Rwandans need urgent transfusions every day. In response, drone delivery now appears to be the fastest way to meet those needs.
Of nearly 13,000 drone orders studied between 2017 and 2019, half of them took just under 50 minutes to deliver. On the road, the estimated average time was more than two hours! For an equivalent journey, the smallest difference recorded was three minutes and the largest was more than three and a half hours, again in favor of drones.
Drone delivery has also reduced the waste of blood supplies in healthcare facilities. This is because, as well as being longer, trips by road are also much more challenging and therefore more likely to result in damage to blood products before they are delivered.
