Ghana will soon witness the biggest deployment ever of drones for a humanitarian aid effort. Spearheaded by the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association and Ausley Associates INC, the effort will provide much needed relief to residents of the country. The executive of MAMA, Gavin Brown, has been under talks with the Republic of Ghana for more than a year to create a special delivery system for medicine and other health related products.
Brown initially encountered officials from Ghana at a Paris air show and from there on, he has been discussing ways of helping the country’s citizens and provide them adequate healthcare. The deal has finally been executed and the program will deliver test results or medicine to locations across the country, which is around the size of Oregon.
In a statement released by Brown, the use of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles in Ghana is a positive sign. It takes about 21 days for doctors to deliver test results or medicine to patients in Ghana. Often, the medicine or results reach too late and have severe repercussions on patients. This program called the Humanitarian Emergency Logistics Program will deliver test results or vaccines within half a day. Drones will not face common issues such as traffic jams, unwanted stops, or any other hurdles a land-based vehicle may face.
CTO at Ausley, Scott Sanders, has had previous experience working in Africa for humanitarian purposes. According to him, logistics is the biggest problem in the area. Since the continent is so vast and large, and has limited resources for immediate medical delivery, HELP will serve be a useful tool to improve people’s lives across the continent in the future. Severe medical conditions such as Ebola can be curtailed thanks to the use of drones for timely medication delivery. A lot of people across the world are keeping a close eye on the development of the HELP program, so that it can be scaled to a larger operation and help more people across the world through the use of UAVs.
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