Zipline receives commendations for supporting Ghana's coronavirus fight

Zipline Technologies, a medical drone giant, has received commendations for its support to Ghana’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The company assisted in the delivery of COVID-19 samples to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research and the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research for testing.

The delivery brought relief to the many health facilities within the company’s operational areas.

Recounting the gains made with the Zipline intervention, Dr Frederick Kwame Ofosu, the Director of Health Services at the Suhum Municipality, told the media that Zipline had offered tremendous support to the directorate since it began operations in April last year.

“Of particular mention for commendation is the support we received during this COVID-19 pandemic.

"At the beginning of the pandemic, we were spending a minimum of GHc200.00 to deliver just one sample to Noguchi.

"However, with Zipline coming on board, the Municipality has not spent any money on transporting COVID-19 samples to Noguchi," he said.

"This was a huge relief to the Municipality in terms of cost and speed of transporting these samples to Noguchi,” he added.

The company has delivered about 3,000 samples from the Omenako and the Mpanya Distribution Centres.

Mr Daniel Marfo, the Country Manager of Zipline, said: "it has been truly exciting hearing the many positive stories we continue to receive daily from our partner health facilities."

He said although it was not part of Zipline’s core mandate to deliver COVID-19 samples, the expertise in delivering medical commodities in record time to health facilities could easily be leveraged on in the transport of the samples for testing.

The company, therefore, sought the required clearance from the authorities to assist in the delivery of samples to the laboratories.

"We have since been in this fight together by deploying the world’s biggest medical drone delivery system to deliver samples to test centres for prompt tests.

"This is the first time a drone is being used to deliver such samples across the entire world," he added.

Aside from the delivery of COVID-19 samples, Mr Marfo said Zipline had assisted the government in the delivery of Personal Protective Equipment to health facilities in the hard-to-reach areas.

They included gloves, nose masks, sanitizers and other protective wears, which were successfully delivered from the Vobsi Distribution Centre across the North East Region.

Additionally, the company continued to deliver essential medical commodities to health facilities from its distribution centres.

Mr Marfo said the company’s services had become much more critical as it helped in reducing the human movement in transporting medical commodities to health facilities.

"This is our primary mandate to which we remain highly committed to,” he added.