Why drones could take healthcare to new heights

Is there a future for drone delivery of medical items in Kenya? Astral Aerial Solutions believes so.

In a country where poor roads have always impacted negatively on the health sector, drone delivery could just be the answer.

On Matundu close, off School lane in Nairobi’s Westlands is Astral Aerial Solutions, a drone operating company.

Its focus is on delivery of medical supplies and blood drops.

The company’s business development manager Kush Gadhia believes the health sector has a gap and is in dire need of the unmanned aircraft.

“Astral will be using drones to deliver medical items as well as other goods. We have been in touch with hospitals and other groups that are interested in the deliveries. The aim is to improve delivery times and reduce costs per delivery into hard-to-reach areas,” he said.

Their target is also to deliver vaccines, anti-venom among others supplies.

Astral’s journey began about four years ago. “My father was initially involved in a business that procured goods for the UN. Every time they would deliver the goods to the airport for transportation, there were no aircraft. The idea was to solve this problem,” he says, who is a licensed manned aviation and drone pilot.

The use of drones for commercial purposes went global after Amazon a few years ago announced its intentions to use drones to deliver packages to customers.

Many saw it as a very intriguing and transformational idea with intended and unintended consequences.

Drones help provide more efficient healthcare to patients from a distance or while mobile.

Small indoor drones could deliver medicine to the bedside of a patient from the pharmacy, thus eliminating some human steps considering the fact human interaction has been altered to a limited new normal thanks to Covid-19 pandemic, adds Gadhia.

This he anticipates would lead to more rapid and less error-prone administration of medication. Nurses and pharmacists can work more efficiently as supplies can be summoned to the bedside instead of the time-consuming task of gathering necessary items.

Rwanda case

Globally, there has been conversation on the same. “With such a devastating pandemic at hand, blood can be drawn and immediately and sent by a drone to the laboratory for testing. This is happening in Rwanda “ says Gadhia.

Rwanda has created a high-quality national blood service, tripling its blood donation rates between 2000 and 2018. The use of innovative technology, like drones for delivering blood quickly to those in need, has been a key factor in the success of the service, according to World Health Organization (WHO).

At the moment, its National Centre for Blood Transfusion provides safe and ample blood and blood products to all patients in need.
This was achieved through 541 permanent mobile blood collection sites and five regional distribution centres serving 66 transfusing health facilities, according to the government’s official records.

A WHO report shows that the centralised supply chains and on-demand deliveries have allowed the NCBT to reduce waste and stock shortages.

In the past, the country grappled with a major challenge of providing blood to those in need but are residing in rural and remote areas.

The locations in question have impassable mountains and damaged roads.

Rwanda uses a drone technology called Zipline, which cuts blood delivery times down from four hours to just 15 minutes in some cases.  “Every second you gain in saving a life is critical. When we saw that Zipline was a solution, we did not hesitate,” said Dr Diane Gashumba, Rwandan Health minister.

Last year, Dr Peter Maturi, a haematologist at Kenyatta National Hospital revealed that the facility is fully dependent on relative donations after Covid-19 lockdowns led to the closure of schools, Kenya’s most reliable blood donating group.

Data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows that the country collects about 150,000 to 200,000 units of blood from donors a year, with a huge chunk being sold to criminal enterprises who in turn sell it to Somalia.

Safety concerns

The future use of drones in healthcare is thought provoking and with it comes the question of safety. “Four years ago, there were no regulations. They were set up and annulled, but now there are new regulations,” says Ghadia.

He says though the fear of drones is very valid, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) is working to eliminate the hurdles.

“We expect the country to soon adopt a UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management) system that will streamline the regulatory processes and ensure higher safety measures and more interaction and oversight between the authority and the drone ecosystem in Kenya,” he says.

For starters, drones have already been trialled in the delivery of food aid and medical supplies to areas hit by disaster, such as Haiti, by a startup called Matternet.

When desert locusts invaded Kenya threatening food production and people’s safety, Gadhia discloses that he was approached to do a desert locust control study.

“We tested the use of drone spring technology on this project, a complimentary type of technology to other spring methods being used, we mapped small holder farmers in both Machakos and Kiambu counties and provided data to all stakeholders,” he says.

He is looking forward to the rapid delivery of vaccines, medication and other supplies which he says will help stop outbreaks of life-threatening diseases.

“Our current team was trained in South Africa but we will soon be starting a drone training academy here in a training division called RPAS Training Academy Kenya. We aim to target the youth to operate drones safely and efficiently, thereby creating an industry with a strong safety culture,” says the manager.

“The course involves 50 hours of ground school and around 10 hours of practical training. We will also be offering courses in mapping, spraying, beyond visual line of sight.”