The Health Ministry has introduced new medical drones that will help in the delivery of life-saving medicine, vaccines, and blood during emergencies.
The system will need health workers to place orders by text message and receive their deliveries in 30 minutes on average.
The commissioner clinical services, Dr. Charles Olaro, told the New Vision that they are engaged in discussions with a number of partners in the process of introducing medical drones. The approach is good and that the discussions were among others exploring the modalities of financing.
“The partner is finalising on how it is going to be financed and be able to see how to pull other partners who can support it,”Olaro said.
Globally, access to essential health products is hampered by the difficulty of supplying medicines from central storage to remotely located patients at the time of need.
The president of Uganda Medical Association (UMA), Dr. Ekwaro Obuku, said if the medical drones are introduced they will help to speedily deliver drugs to hard to reach areas especially when there are stock-outs of medicines.
Obuku also mentioned, “The medical drones can be effective, cost-saving and time-saving in quick delivery of life-saving medicines and blood to health facilities.”
Early this year, Ghana inaugurated medical delivery drones in the city of Omenako.
The drones designed by Zipline, a California-based robotics company have benefited 12 million people all over the country.
Up to 600 daily drone flight are made to deliver vaccines, blood supplies and life-saving medicines to 2,000 health centres in remote areas across the country.