Zipline services improve health outcomes — Studies

The services of ZIPLINE GHANA, an autonomous medical storage and delivery service provider, have contributed to reducing maternal mortality in facilities it served in the Ashanti Region by 56.4 per cent compared to non-Zipline served facilities, according to a BioMed Central (BMC) Report, an international health service journal. 

The BMC Health Services Research findings, published in March this year, showed that Zipline-served facilities in the Ashanti Region had a 20 per cent increase in antenatal visits and a 25 per cent increase in skilled deliveries, with the two factors contributing to a 56.4 per cent drop in maternal deaths compared to non-Zipline areas.

In another study by the Vaccine Journal, the introduction of Zipline’s services was deemed to have achieved a 13.1 to 37.5 percentage points increase in childhood vaccination rates in Zipline-served facilities in western-north Ghana, including a 32.6 percentage points increase in Penta 1, a vaccine against five killer diseases in children.

The intervention by Zipline also resulted in a drop in missed vaccination opportunities by 42 per cent, and reduced the duration of vaccine stockouts by 60 per cent, according to a study by IDinsight.

A recent Zipline impact report also showed that served facilities in the Volta Region reported 60 per cent fewer referrals compared to non-served facilities.

Zipline, which has been in operation since 2019 as a strategic medical supply storage and delivery facility via drones from its six operation centres nationwide, has been a critical infrastructure partner for the government, serving health facilities across the country. 

Deliveries

Briefing the media during a tour of the Zipline facility at Anum in the Eastern Region last Friday, the Country Manager of Zipline Ghana, Daniel Kwaku Merki, said the six Zipline facilities nationwide had delivered more than 8.4 million essential medical products to health facilities across the country.

He stated that Zipline had delivered over 750,000 packages of essential medical commodities to its served health facilities nationwide, especially those in very remote areas.

Mr Merki said Zipline currently serves over 3,000 health facilities, including hospitals, clinics, health centres and community-based health planning and services (CHPS) compounds in 162 districts based in 14 regions.

“It has delivered medical units, including medications for malaria, HIV and TB, family planning products, blood products, vitamins, nutritional products, medicines for pregnant women, more than 17 million vaccine doses, over 20,000 blood units and over 30,000 anti-venoms.

It also records 6,750 life-saving deliveries per year,” he said. 

Mr Merki added that “since 2022, 9,698 people who were in critical condition and could have died without Zipline’s support, had survived, with 75 per cent of those cases occurring in northern Ghana, over 1,600 of them reported as snakebite injuries. 

Expansion

The country manager said Zipline planned to expand its services nationwide, leveraging its drone delivery facility to reach more communities and improve healthcare outcomes.

He added that the company also aimed to explore new use cases such as delivering agricultural inputs and products to farmers, delivering exam papers and materials to schools, and also collaborating with private companies to provide innovative delivery solutions.

Mr Merki explained that Zipline Ghana's expansion was expected to create more job opportunities, with the company currently employing around 240 Ghanaians, including pharmacists, engineers and flight operations personnel.