Zipline Expands Medical Drone-Delivery Service to Ghana

Today, Zipline is officially opening the first of four distribution centers in Ghana, inaugurating a drone-delivery network that will eventually serve 2,000 hospitals and clinics covering 12 million people. Here's what Zipline says in a press release about the new operation: The revolutionary new service will use drones to make on-demand, emergency deliveries of 148 different vaccines, blood products, and life-saving medications. The service will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from 4 distribution centers--each equipped with 30 drones--and deliver to 2,000 health facilities serving 12 million people across the country. Together, all four distribution centers will make up to 600 on-demand delivery flights a day on behalf of the Government of Ghana. Each Zipline distribution center has the capacity to make up to 500 flights per day. Zipline's contract with the government of Ghana is worth US $12.5 million, but there has been significant criticism over the deal from the minority party in the Ghanaian government (backed by the Ghana Medical Association) arguing that funding was urgently needed for basic services rather than for medical drone delivery.