Up To 150 Emergency Medical Drone Flights a
Day
MISSISSAUGA, ON, Oct. 14, 2016 /CNW/ - Today, Rwandan President
Paul Kagame launched the world's
first national drone delivery service during a ceremony in the
country's centrally located Muhanga District. Starting today, the
Rwandan government will begin using drones to make up to 150
on-demand, emergency deliveries per day of life-saving blood to 21
transfusing facilities located in the western half of the
country.
The drones and delivery service are built and operated by
Zipline, a California-based
robotics company. While Rwanda's
drone delivery service will initially focus on blood, an
international partnership between UPS®, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance,
and Zipline will help the country quickly expand the types of
medicines and lifesaving vaccines that can be delivered.
"Drones are very useful, both commercially and for improving
services in the health sector. We are happy to be launching this
innovative technology and to continue working with partners to
develop it further," said Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
The Global Problem
Throughout the developing world, access to lifesaving and
critical health products is hampered by what is known as the
last-mile problem: the inability to deliver needed medicine from a
city to rural or remote locations due to lack of adequate
transportation, communication and supply chain infrastructure.
In Rwanda, postpartum
hemorrhaging is the leading cause of death for pregnant women.
Blood requires storage and transport at safe temperatures and
spoils quickly. Because there are many different blood products and
no way to accurately project future needs, many transfusion clinics
do not keep all the blood they may need in stock.
During Rwanda's lengthy rainy
season, many roads wash out becoming impassible or non-existent.
The result is that all too often someone in need of a
lifesaving transfusion cannot access the blood they need to
survive.
The Solution
Rwanda's national drone
delivery program enables blood transfusion clinics across the
Western half of the country to place emergency orders by cell phone
text message. The orders are then received by Zipline at its
distribution center located in the country's Muhanga region where
the company maintains a fleet of 15 drones, called Zips.
Each Zip can fly up to 150 km round trip—even in wind and
rain—and carry 3.3 lbs. of blood, which is enough to save a
person's life. Zips take off and land at the distribution centre,
and make deliveries by descending close to the ground and air
dropping medicine to a designated spot called a "mailbox" near the
health centres they serve. Zipline will make 50-150 emergency
flights a day to 21 transfusion clinics across the Western Half of
Rwanda and can fulfill orders in
around 30 minutes.
Rwanda plans to expand
Zipline's drone delivery service to the Eastern half of the country
in early 2017, putting almost every one of the country's 11 million
citizens within reach of instant delivery of lifesaving
medicines.
"The inability to deliver life-saving medicines to the people
who need them the most causes millions of preventable deaths each
year around the world. Zipline will help solve that problem once
and for all," said Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo. "We've built an
instant delivery system for the world, allowing medicine to be
delivered on-demand and at low-cost, anywhere."
Rwanda and Beyond
The commercial partnership between Rwanda and Zipline is expected to save
thousands of lives over the next three years. Through this effort,
Rwanda is leading the world by
using cutting-edge technology to leapfrog the absence of road
infrastructure and to provide cutting edge healthcare access to all
its 11 million citizens.
The work in Rwanda is being
further supported by an international partnership between Zipline,
UPS and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Thanks to a $1.1 million (USD) grant from the UPS Foundation,
the partnership will study Rwanda's blood drone delivery operation with
an eye towards helping the country quickly expanding the types of
medicines and lifesaving vaccines that can be delivered.
Leveraging UPS's extensive global supply chain and logistics
expertise, Gavi's deep public health and vaccine knowledge, and
Zipline's cutting edge last-mile delivery technology, the
partnership hopes to use the knowledge gained in Rwanda and export it around the world.
"Drones have the potential to revolutionise the way we reach
remote communities with emergency medical supplies. The hours saved
delivering blood products or a vaccine for someone who has been
exposed to rabies with this technology could make the difference
between life and death," said Dr. Seth
Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. "This project
will also act as an important test for whether drones are a viable
way to improve targeted vaccine delivery around the world. Every
child deserves basic, lifesaving vaccines. This technology could be
an important step towards ensuring they get them."
UPS's logistics expertise and resources are expected to play a
critical role in helping the partnership to expand the reach of
this important work. The company was actually able to transport the
entire Zipline system from California to Rwanda in record time in a "Browntail" cargo
plane, helping to ensure Zipline's distribution centre could be
constructed in just four weeks.
"One of the most important focus areas for The UPS Foundation is
to spark public-private partnerships that create powerful scale and
drive demonstrable impact in support of global humanitarian aid and
relief," said Eduardo Martinez,
president of The UPS Foundation and chief diversity and inclusion
officer at UPS. "The shared belief in the ability to save lives
through applied innovation, combined with Rwanda's vision, is now not only poised to
advance humanitarian logistics – and logistics as we know it –
around the world, but also to save lives. Now is when our
partnership between The UPS Foundation, Gavi and Zipline counts
most, as we see the first operational missions dedicated to
shipping lifesaving blood, and keep our eye on what the future can
bring for other life-saving commodities, as well as for other parts
of the world."
Over the course of the next year, and with the support of the
partnership with UPS and Gavi, Zipline plans to expand drone
delivery services to countries across Africa and the Americas. Additionally, Zipline
recently announced plans at the White House to expand its service
to the United States, where it
will serve Indian reservations in Maryland, Nevada, and Washington State.
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About Zipline
Zipline is a robotics company based in California. The company—which includes
seasoned aerospace veterans who previously worked at companies and
organizations like SpaceX, Google, Boeing, and NASA—designs and
manufactures autonomous aircraft for delivering lifesaving medicine
to the world's most difficult to reach places .
Zipline's long-term mission is to build instant delivery for the
planet, allowing medicines and other products to be delivered on
demand and at low cost without using a drop of gasoline. Zipline is
supported by some of the smartest investors in the world,
including: Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, SV Angel, Subtraction
Capital, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang,
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and
Stanford University.
About UPS
UPS (NYSE: UPS) is a global leader in logistics, offering a
broad range of solutions including the transportation of packages
and freight; the facilitation of international trade, and the
deployment of advanced technology to more efficiently manage the
world of business. Since its founding in 1907, UPS has built a
legacy as a caring and responsible corporate citizen, supporting
programs that provide long-term solutions to community needs.
Founded in 1951, The UPS Foundation leads its global citizenship
programs and is responsible for facilitating community involvement
to local, national, and global communities. In 2015, UPS and its
employees, active and retired, invested more than $110 million in charitable giving around the
world.
The UPS Foundation can be found on the web at
UPS.com/Foundation. To get UPS news directly, visit
pressroom.ups.com/RSS or follow @UPS_News and @UPS_Foundation.
About Gavi
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership
committed to saving children's lives and protecting people's health
by increasing equitable use of vaccines in lower-income countries.
The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor
governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank,
the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners.
Gavi uses innovative finance mechanisms, including co-financing by
recipient countries, to secure sustainable funding and adequate
supply of quality vaccines.
Since 2000, Gavi has contributed to the immunisation of nearly
580 million children and the prevention of approximately 8 million
future deaths. Learn more at www.gavi.org and connect with us on
Facebook and Twitter.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is funded by governments
(Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan,
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, the People's
Republic of China, Republic of Korea, Russia, South
Africa, Spain, the
State of Qatar, the Sultanate of
Oman, Sweden, United
Kingdom, and United
States), the European Commission, Alwaleed Philanthropies,
the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as well as private
and corporate partners (Absolute Return for Kids, Anglo American plc., The Children's Investment
Fund Foundation, Comic Relief, the ELMA Vaccines and Immunization
Foundation, The International Federation of Pharmaceutical
Wholesalers (IFPW), the Gulf Youth Alliance, JP Morgan, "la Caixa"
Foundation, LDS Charities, Lions Clubs International Foundation,
Majid Al Futtaim, Phillips, UPS and
Vodafone.
SOURCE UPS Canada Ltd.