Zipline Delivers Life-Saving Medical Supplies to Rwandan Villages Faster than You Can Get a Pizza Delivery [Video]

 Thirty minutes or less used to be standard for food delivery. Meanwhile, in other regions of the world, some remote villages would have to wait hours for the medications and blood needed to save lives. Fast forward to today, and -- thanks to the rising demand for delivery as well as urban sprawl -- the food delivery standard has grown to around an hour. But, the same trend has not followed medical supply delivery thanks to a startup called Zipline, which can now deliver life-saving blood, snake anti-venom, and medications to remote locations in a matter of minutes.  

Zipline's environmentally friendly, fixed-wing drones, aptly named “Zips,” can make up to 500 deliveries per day, reaching top speeds of 80 mph ... rain or shine, 24/7! Faster delivery speeds mean remote villages can receive the medications and blood they need in minutes instead of hours. Before Zipline was implemented in Rwanda, daily trips would need to be made to cities to stock up on blood and supplies. The more hours that pass, the more blood and lives are lost. 

“Nearly half of the units of blood delivered nationwide are for complications of childbirth,” stated Dr. Diane Gashumba, the Minister of Health in Rwanda. With a maternal mortality rate that’s 20 times higher than that of the United States, Zipline is helping to save the lives of Rwandans across the nation. Dr. Gashumba says remote hospitals can now avoid expiries and stockout because the supply chain has improved. “Blood is life. It’s saving Rwandans.” 

With a simple text to the Zipline Distribution Center, medications are delivered within an 80 km radius (49.71 miles), no matter the surrounding terrain, and can carry to 2 kilograms of medical products each flight – including rare medications and cold-chain dependent items like blood. Every step of the process is communicated via text message to hospital workers; they know when the plane has taken off with the medication on its autonomous flightpath, and receive a notification once delivery has been completed via parachute - in a tightly wrapped parcel package - to the predetermined delivery site. No landing or pilot necessary.  

The Silicon Valley-based company is working on branching out of Rwanda and began making deliveries in Tanzania earlier this year. They’re currently working with the Federal Aviation Administration and state governments to start making deliveries in the United States by late 2018.   

Read the full TechCrunch article featuring Zipline.