By Chris Stonor
Blue Dart, a leading express logistics service provider, announced last week it is to deliver vaccines and emergency medical supplies to the more remote areas of India by drone, reports a press release.
The company’s Blue Dart Med-Express Consortium is part of the ‘Medicine from the Sky’ project in collaboration with the Telangana government, World Economic Forum, Niti Aayog and Healthnet Global. India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has granted the project with necessary exemptions and rights to fly drone flights on a trial basis in Telangana.
The release says, “The aim is to assess an alternate logistics route in providing safe, accurate and reliable pickup and delivery of healthcare items (medicines, Covid-19 vaccines, units of blood, diagnostic specimens and other lifesaving equipment) from distribution centres to specific location and back.”
The project will enable deliveries from district medical stores and blood banks to Primary Health Centres (PHCs), Community Health Centres (CHCs), Blood Storage Units and further away from PHCs/CHCs to Central Diagnostic laboratories.
Balfour Manuel, MD of Blue Dart said, “While we reach out to over 35,000 locations across the country, the current situation calls for a much deeper penetration of vaccines.”
Jayesh Ranjan, Industries & Commerce and Information Technology (IT) Departments of the Telangana government added, “Telangana is one of the most proactive states looking to adopt emerging technologies, and the ‘Medicine from the Sky’ project deploying drones is in line with the same principles. The vision is to ensure healthcare equity for rural areas.”
Visual presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWoBpHtTqNE
For more information
(News Source: https://www.business-standard.com)
