Kaduna State Distribute Drugs Using Drone Technologies in Hard To Reach Communities.
Pharmacist Samuel Timothy Noma. Operations Manager Speaking to Journalists
By Shindong Bala
Health facilities across 12 Local Government Areas of Kaduna State now receive a minimum of One Hundred and Fifty deliveries of medical items on daily basis using drones technology which was launched by the state government in June last year.
The operations manager of the logistics facility Mr. Samuel Timothy Noma disclosed this when a group of journalists visited the facility in Pambegua community where the drugs are being distributed to the medical facilities.
He explained that the logistic facility under Zipline Nigeria commenced full operations in august last year across 12 Local Government Areas of the state capturing 291 health facilities on it’s radar for the daily and regular deliveries.
According to him, the modern technology was essentially launched to provide all kinds of medical supplies within hard to reach areas of Kaduna State.
“This technology came in into play because most of the health facilities do not have proper storage facilities we therefore centralized and also help store those health commodities so that at the instance of every call we quickly deliver them to the facilities. Even the security for storage of the facilities is not there, so when the health providers call they only requests for what is required just for that day, the average time from receiving the order through flying from the central zipline area is 5 minutes”.
Mr. Samuel Timothy Noma who is a pharmacist emphasized that the timely delivery of drugs and other products to the health facilities has help to secure loss of lives apart from other advantages.
The flight operations lead, Mr. Jeremiah Duna in his explanations stated that more than 10,000 flights have been carried out from the central discharging area in Pambegua to the various health facilities since inception of the operations.
“We have had over 10,000 flights to the health facilities using the drones since beginning in August last year as the project was launched in June but operations began in August, We use Telegram platform and phone calls to communicate, the main products we sent out to the health facilities include; blood, Essential medicines, Vaccines and then medical consumables. We are also working on provision of animal vaccines. We have standard storage systems for all the medical products to maintain their integrity, in a day we deliver over 150 packages with the peak periods being mostly immunization periods and are mainly served in hard to reach areas”.
Mallam Tasi’u Abdullahi a senior Health Provider with Hayin Gada Nasaru Health Clinic which is among the facility receiving the medical supplies brought in by the drone described the platform as the cheapest means of getting drugs.
“It is the cheapest way we received drugs presently and the drugs are very genuine and effective when administered” he said “We call them all the time especially during emergencies, It is far more better than going to pharmacy”.
Earlier the Team Lead for the logistics supplies Mr. Kwasu Kanchok had explained that the operations covers a maximum of 80 kilometers from the operations station in Pambegua Area of Kubau Local Government Area of the state.
