The Kaduna State Government and Zipline, the world’s first and only national scale drone delivery service, announced a partnership to use a logistics network of autonomous delivery drones to help transform access and availability of routine and emergency medicine for millions of people in the state.
“This groundbreaking initiative was made possible thanks to the leadership and support of Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai,” a statement by the Kaduna State Government said.
“The revolutionary new service will use drones to make on-demand deliveries of hundreds of different vaccines, blood products, and life-saving medications. The service will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from three distribution centres—each equipped with 30 drones—and deliver to more than 1,000 health facilities serving millions of people across Kaduna State. Together, all three distribution centres will be capable of microtargeting the delivery of more than six tons of medical products each week over more than 60,000 square kilometres.
“Kaduna State is focused on delivering one of the best public healthcare systems in Nigeria,” said Governor Nasir El-Rufai.
“The state has upgraded 255 primary health centres, one in each political ward, to improve access to health care services. It is also implementing a supply chain transformation programme in the health sector, including the installation of a Pharmagrade warehouse, to efficiently service the needs of hospitals for medicines, consumables and vaccines. Our primary health board is recruiting and training 3000 officers to manage these systems and ensure that health facilities do not experience stock-outs.”
According to the statement, Mr El-Rufai noted that “while we celebrate our successes, we must also recognize that we have much more work to do to create universal access to critical healthcare for all.”
“The agreement with Zipline builds on and adds value to…
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