Unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, have become a hot topic in public health for their potential in delivering life-saving medicines, blood, or vaccines to people in remote areas. But much of the conversation is dominated by suppliers aiming to acquire market share for their latest products and services, and not enough comes from the perspective of health ministry officials, who have to make hard choices with little information.

To examine the potential for employing UAVs across a public health system, a team from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, John Snow, Inc., Llamasoft, Inc., and the Nichols Group looked at UAV cost-effectiveness compared to a motorcycle-based system and other well-run forms of land transport, using three sets of data from African countries over 12 months. The underlying objective is to save and improve lives through more effective service delivery.

We feel that the global and country dialogue needs to be expanded to include considerations of the biggest drivers of cost-effectiveness and ways to redesign health systems that will optimize service levels. In the meantime, we would like to share high-level guidance to approaching this important decision.

The first step is to articulate which of the following interventions are a priority and most relevant to achieving overall health goals or impact. Our analysis identified five areas where it might make good sense to use a UAV:

  • Safe blood for transfusions
  • Long-tail products (i.e. low volume products that have unpredictable demand, such as anti-venom for snakebite or rabies vaccines)
  • Program and essential medicines (in response to stockouts)
  • Vaccines
  • Diagnostic specimens

Our aim is to ensure countries are in the driver’s seat for deciding when and how to invest in UAVs.

Read the full article about how UAVs could deliver health care by Yasmin Chandani at Devex.