The Commissioner for Health in Cross River State, Dr Henry Egbe Ayuk, has disclosed that the state government is considering engaging more drone firms to enable them to deliver drugs to hard-to-reach communities to facilitate swift healthcare outreach.
He spoke in Ogoja, in the northern part of the state, during a drone facility assessment tour of the facility of Zipline whose drone services deliver drugs to many communities.
“Deployment of drone technology is a wonderful scientific innovation that should be encouraged in a state like Cross River with many hard-to-reach areas. We have seen how the drones that transport the drugs work. There is no other method that can be used to address distribution to the last man in a state like ours.
“We will continue to sit down with Zipline and review our activities, but the ultimate is that this is good; it is a global practice that has been tried in other terrains and here and has worked,” he said.
He added: “We have also seen the safe environment from where the drugs are warehoused and the drones are deployed.”
Dr Ayuk said the state is consolidating plans to ensure another facility is provided in Akampa Local Government Area that would service the Southern Senatorial District of the state, where there are many health facilities in riverine areas in need of effective supplies of drugs and vaccines.
An official of the drone facility, Norbert Ogar, said they try to ensure easy access to essential medicines and vaccines using innovative technology.
He noted that there are communities in Cross River that require hours or a whole day to access them, but with drones, all it took was 15 to 30 minutes to deliver drugs and vaccines to them.
