By Adedapo Adesanya
The Bayelsa State Government and Zipline have announced a partnership aimed at leveraging the latter’s drone technology to deliver essential medicines, blood and other medical commodities to health facilities within the state.
Through the agreement, Zipline will establish a distribution hub in Bayelsa State for the introduction, operation, and maintenance of just-in-time instant logistics solutions to ensure that essential drugs, blood and a selection of other life-saving medical supplies are available to the state’s health facilities in the state.
When completed, the service will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, day or night, from the distribution centre which will be equipped with Zipline’s proprietary fleet of drones.
To ensure sustainability and continuous availability of medical products within the value chain for distribution, the Bayelsa State Government, represented by the Ministry of Health, has separately entered an agreement with DrugStoc, Health Spaces, Sterling Bank and Zipline – forming a consortium. This consortium, being led by Zipline, will ensure the availability of safe, quality and affordable drugs and medicines to all residents of the state in all its health facilities.
Speaking on the partnership, the Bayelsa state governor, Mr Douye Diri said, “We remain well committed to delivering an aggressive agenda of building a dependable health delivery system in Bayelsa, part of which has given birth to this partnership.
“We envisage that this partnership will remain one of the most significant ways of removing the access barriers that mitigate easy delivery of medical commodities to our health facilities.
“Even distribution of on-demand medical commodities to remote and hard-to-reach areas do not only safe lives but also become a significant way of managing waste that happens as a result of the expiry of medicines.”
On his part, Zipline CEO, Mr Keller Rinaudo, said – “Zipline is pleased to partner with the people and Government of Bayelsa to advance instant, autonomous healthcare delivery across the state.
“This partnership is an important milestone for Zipline as we scale smart, safe and just-in-time delivery technology and transform how goods move around the globe.”
In addition, the Senior Vice President for Zipline Africa, Mr Daniel Marfo assured that Zipline will begin the construction process immediately so as to stay within the agreed timelines.
“We are committed to rapidly meeting our side of this agreement, part of which entails the building of a distribution hub from where we will store and deliver the medical commodities and employ hundreds of local team members from Bayelsa.
“Our system is well tested across Africa and the United States, and there is no doubt that it is a giant step in expanding universal healthcare access in Nigeria.”
On her part, the State Commissioner of Health, Dr Pabara Newton Igwele said “This partnership is significant to us as it will complement our efforts in hitching up primary health care delivery services in Bayelsa. There is no doubt that leveraging technology for medical delivery should be a game-changer for even distribution of medical commodities.”
The partnership in Bayelsa makes it the third of such in Nigeria following similar agreements in Kaduna and Cross River states.
Aduragbemi Omiyale