🌍 Air delivery

A couple of stats to kick off your week:

1. 127,000 women die from bleeding related to labor annually in Africa

2. One-third of these casualties result from delays in obtaining medical supplies, especially blood.

   Grumpy Monday already? Hold on…

In a day and age where events are mostly covered using drones, one would wonder why the sky isn’t filled with these e-planes (and no, the ‘e’ doesn’t stand for economy) hovering around and delivering critical vitamin C tablets medical supplies.

Truth is…we’re not that far behind

Despite not seeming very prominent on the continent, there has actually been an explosion of drone deliveries for medical supplies in recent years.

1. Rwanda’s Zipline delivers blood and medical supplies at most 45 minutes after receiving an order from the most distant hospital. It only recently celebrated its one-millionth delivery.

2. Matternet, a Swiss drone company has its claws firmly placed on the Malawian market.

3. In Tanzania & Rwanda, Wingcopter have carved a niche for themselves in the delivery of diagnostic samples.

So…how big can this get? Somewhat big.

In December 2022, Zipline signed an exclusive agreement with the Rwandan government to cover more than 200 kilometers and complete up to 2 million deliveries of medical supplies by 2029.

This is without considering that the company already operates in several other African countries including Ghana(where it has completed 2 million deliveries already), Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire.

And with similar startups finally securing funding, we may soon be on our way to safe blood donations from the comfort of your home. And improved health indices of course(how could we forget?).

Sidenote…Amazon Air Prime(a drone delivery service by Amazon) only completed about 100 deliveries in the US by mid-2023. And no, this is not us suggesting that the drone industry in Africa is the next best thing since sliced bread.