Delivering vaccines via drones to commence soon in Côte d'Ivoire, Cross River, Kaduna

The government of Ivory Coast has announced a partnership with Zipline, the global leader in instant logistics, to deliver medical supplies - comprising vaccines, medications and blood products, to health facilities across the West African nation - through its drone delivery service.

In Nigeria, Kaduna and Cross River States announced similar partnerships with Zipline earlier in the year.

Zipline medicine drone delivery services in both states will commence in early 2022, meaning that they will be joining Ghana and Rwanda--who have since adopted the model.

As part of this latest partnership with the government of Ivory Coast, Zipline will build and operate four distribution centers from where blood products, vaccines, and medical products will be stored and distributed to more than 1,000 health facilities across the country.

The first distribution center is expected to be completed and operationalised before the end of 2022.

The agreement aims to support the ministry's vision to achieve Universal Health Coverage by ensuring equitable access to blood products, vaccines, and medical products, especially in rural areas.

“Achieving a Universal Health Coverage is top of our priority at the Ministry and we believe that this bold decision to partner Zipline is one sure way of achieving it”, says Minister of Health, Public Hygiene, and Universal Health Coverage in Ivory Coast, Mr. Pierre N'gou DIMBA.

He adds that: “We have evaluated the capacity of Zipline, their operations in other African countries with similar needs to ours, and we truly believe that this partnership will help us to remove access barriers to health care and create a more equitable and efficient health system across the country."

The Director, Africa Go-To-Market for Zipline, Mr. Israel Bimpe, expresses the hope that the Zipline technology is going to significantly improve the healthcare delivery system of his country.

“Our revolutionary instant logistics technology, which is being deployed around the world, will largely improve access and even distribution of medical commodities to remote and hard-to-reach areas," he says.

Zipline will support all health facilities with emergency response capabilities, as well as routine and stock-out-response deliveries of medicines, vaccines, and blood.