7 Ways Zipline Has Impacted Healthcare Outcomes in Africa

Zipline was founded to create the first logistics system that serves all humans equally.

The company designs, manufactures and operates the world’s largest autonomous logistics system that is used every day by businesses, governments and consumers.

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Zipline delivery facility

Well, the technology is complex, and includes autonomous, electric drones, but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it in a way that’s faster, cheaper and greener than automotive delivery.

Zipline operates on four continents, has flown more than 90 million autonomous miles, and has delivered tens of millions of items since 2016.

The company currently completes an autonomous drone delivery every 65 seconds.

Most recently, Zipline is teaming up with the government of Nigeria to transform health access and equity by using drone delivery to improve the country’s infrastructure, positioning it to leapfrog barriers to economic growth and development.

“It is this sort of partnership – one that brings tens of millions of dollars of foreign investment, turns Nigeria into a global AI and robotics powerhouse, and creates jobs of the future for its youth – that will reshape Nigeria and the world over the coming years,” Zipline CEO and Co-Founder Keller Rinaudo Cliffton said.

In this report, Techeconomy showcases the impact of Zipline’s early operations on health outcomes in Africa. In fact, it has been staggering:

• Zipline has centralized almost all of Rwanda’s blood supply and sends it on demand where it’s needed, avoiding long storage of unused blood components in the field. A study published in The Lancet shows that Zipline reduced blood expiries by 67% in its first three years of operating in Rwanda.

A medical personal going to take delivery of delivery by Zipline

• Also thanks to its ability to centralize and deliver blood on demand, Zipline has reduced in-hospital maternal mortality due to postpartum hemorrhaging by 51% in Rwanda (Source: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania).
• Similarly, the Ghana Health Service (pre-print) finds a 4% decline in maternal deaths at Zipline-served facilities vs. non Zipline facilities, driven by increased health system utilization.
• Research published in the peer-reviewed Vaccine Journal finds a 21 percentage point average increase in childhood vaccination rates in Zipline-served areas in Ghana.
• A study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation finds that in Ghana, Zipline reduced missed vaccination opportunities by 42% and the duration of vaccine stockouts (when a product is out of stock due to inventory shortage) by 60%.
• PrEP retention refers to how regularly a patient takes pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a tool used to prevent transmission of HIV. In Kenya, Zipline has helped increase 1-month and 6-month PrEP retention rates to 94% and 86% respectively (rates were 9-12% before Zipline).
• While studies on Zipline’s work in Nigeria are still underway, Zipline has already helped vaccinate more than 15,000 children, 10,000 of whom were originally classified as zero-dose (children who have never received a single dose of vaccine).