By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Uganda has launched a drone that will be delivering HIV drugs to remote islands in the country.
Uganda’s ministry of health, the Academy for Health Innovation, Uganda, and IDI collaborated on the medical drones pilot at Bufumira, which carried ARVs to more than 1,000 people living with HIV.
The “overcoming geographical barriers with technology” initiative will ease challenges, said Henry Mwebesa, Uganda’s director general of health services, said during the launch.
Mwebesa said, “Using medical drones is a huge step for us as a health sector in improving service delivery especially in hard to reach areas.
“It’s very useful. Once it’s successful we can adopt it for other facilities and replicate it in other places.”
The drones are controlled by locally trained experts who monitor the flight and landing.
The Uganda Medical Association welcomed the drones, but expressed concern over drug shortages due to inadequate funding. Its secretary general Mukuzi Muhereza said:
“We are welcoming it. It’s very important and it could be a gamechanger. It would be nice to see whether it really works with our bad network and connectivity.”
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During the launching ceremony, bottles of medication were carefully loaded into the body of the drone, as the drone rises, a little uncertainly, into the sky, on its 1.5-metre wings.
The precious cargo leaving Bufumira health centre III, in Uganda’s Kalangala district, is critical drugs for people living in some of the most far-flung communities in the region.
Kalangala is made up of 84 islands in Lake Victoria, the world’s largest tropical lake, which Uganda shares with Tanzania and Kenya.
The drone taking off last week was a pilot for a new project which will now see 20 scheduled flights a month, carrying mostly HIV medicines out to 78 community groups and health facilities across the widely scattered Ssese islands, which have the highest HIV prevalence in Uganda.
Located about 60 miles from the capital, Kampala, and home to more than 67,000 people, Kalangala district has an HIV prevalence rate of 18%, far higher than the national rate of 5.6%, the Guardian UK reports.
The government’s HIV strategy estimates prevalence of the virus to be up to 40% in some fishing communities.
The delivery of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) and healthcare is difficult, weather-dependent and risky for healthcare workers, as travel into the region is possible only by boat.
The drones, it’s hoped, which cost about £4,000 each, carry loads of up to 1kg and fly for 150km, will “close that last mile”, said Andrew Kambugu, executive director at Makerere University Infectious Disease Institute (IDI).
He said, “Medical drones can help solve this challenge by safely and reliably delivering lifesaving medications, thereby empowering frontline healthcare workers to allocate more time and resources to performing other essential services, resulting in healthier and more resilient communities.”
