Zipline Pushes the Frontiers in Medical Supply Chain with Drone Delivery

Emma Okonji

With its drones or “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAV), Zipline is filling key supply chain gaps, providing much-needed access to medicine, medical supplies and vaccines.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly two billion people across the world lack reliable access to quality essential medical products such as blood and vaccines due to gaps in supply chains and poor infrastructure.

A functioning supply, appropriate warehousing, and end-to-end transportation, are critical to making sure that people have access to essential, quality medicine. Increasingly, drones or “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAV) are being used to fill in key supply chain gaps, providing much-needed access to access to to medicine, medical supplies and vaccines.

By storing medicine, blood and other critical medical supplies and delivering them directly to health facilities, Zipline is helping the government of Ghana reduce wasted medication resulting from overstocking and expiration. Because health facilities can order on-demand, as needed, they no longer have to request large quantities of medicine from their national medical stores to make sure they have them in stock, ultimately resulting in over-ordering and expiration.