Historicizing medical drones in Africa: a focus on Ghana

Abstract

While the genesis of the drone technology is not clear, one thing is ideal: it emerged as a military apparatus and gained much attention during major wars, including the two world wars. Aside being used in combats and to deliver humanitarian services, drones have also been used extensively to kill both troops and civilians. Revolutionized in the 19th century, the drone technology was improved to be controlled as an unmanned aerial devices to mainly target troops. A new emerging field that has seen the application of the drone technology is the healthcare sector. Over the years, the health sector has increasingly relied on the device for timely transportation of essential articles across the globe. Since its introduction in health, scholars have attempted to address the impact of drones on healthcare across Africa and the world at large. Among other things, it has been reported by scholars that the device has the ability to overcome the menace of weather constraints, inadequate personnel and inaccessible roads within the healthcare sector. This notwithstanding, data on drones and drone application in Ghana and her healthcare sector in particular appears to be little within the drone literature. Also, few attempts have been made by scholars to highlight the use of drones in African countries. By using a narrative review approach, the current study attempts to address the gap above. Using this approach, a thorough literature search was performed to locate and assess scientific materials that focus on the application of drones in the military field and in the medical systems of Africa and Ghana in particular. With its sole responsibility to deliver items, stakeholders of health across several parts of the world have relied on drones to transport vital articles to health centers. Countries like Senegal, Madagascar, Rwanda and Malawi encouraged Ghana to consider the application of drones in her mainstream healthcare delivery. Findings from the study have revealed that Ghana’s adoption of the drone policy has enhanced the timely delivery of products such as test samples, blood and Personal Protective Equipment to various health centres and rural areas in particular. Drones have contributed to the delivery of equity in healthcare delivery in Ghana. We conclude that with the drone policy, the continent has the potential to record additional successes concerning the over-widened gap in healthcare between rural and urban populations.

Infrastructure-as-a-service: Empty skies, bad roads, and the rise of cargo drones

“…With the notion of ‘Africa-as-a-Service’, we point to the mobilization of resources, narratives, and images of Africa that are both constructed and real but never tied to one particular place only. This observation also resonates with other contemporary reflections on the historical entanglements of drones on the African continent (Adu-Gymafi et al, 2021). Sandvik, for instance, has called attention to the links between colonial uses of airpower and how they play into current innovations within African airspaces through the use of drones.…”

“…ranging from border control to agriculture and species conservation) (Sandvik and Jumbert, 2018). Other chapters have critically engaged with not only the (potential) impact cargo drones will have on specific sectors of society (Adu-Gyamfi et al, 2021;Eichleay et al, 2019) but also how drones are shaped by humanitarian settings (Sandvik et al, 2014;Sandvik et al, 2017) or biomedical use cases (Peckham and Sinha, 2019).…”

Shortening The Last-Mile: Impact of Zipline Medical Drone Delivery on The Operations of Hard-to-Reach Healthcare Facilities in Northern Ghana.

“…Studies by Nouvet et al (2019); Demuyakor (2020); Adu-Gyamfi et al, (2021) and Lin et al (2019) in Ghana and other SS African countries on the application of medical drones in the delivery of medical commodities have indicated significant contributions toward improved rural health care especially in last-mile communities. This comes up against the backdrop of inaccessible roads, inadequate communication and rural areas requiring the use of ox-drawn carts through flooded fields to isolated clinics and health centres across rural Africa.…”

“…Besides, several studies by Ackerman and Strickland (2018); Knoblauch et al (2019); Amukele (2019); Lamptey and Serwaa (2020); Davison et al (2021); Debangshi (2021) and Adu-Gyamfi et al (2021) have made significant contributions to the discourse on drone delivery services on the Sub-Saharan (SS) African continent and beyond. These studies examined the state and nature of drones in healthcare systems, construction, agriculture, data collection, and entertainment among others.…”

Emerging Research Topics in Drone Healthcare Delivery

“…The focus was on the last-mile delivery challenges in these regions, where traditional delivery methods are often impeded by geographical and infrastructural barriers [60]. Studies highlighted the advantages of UAVs in overcoming these barriers, providing timely access to essential healthcare products in remote locations, often in developing countries with less stringent aviation regulations [61][62][63].…”