President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has commissioned a new medical drone distribution centre of Zipline in Sefwi Wiawso, in the Wetsern North Region.
This fourth drone center comes nearly a year after launching the second medical drone distribution centre at Mpanya in the Ashanti Region.
“The launch of the fourth medical drone distribution centre, is part of our broader commitment to expanding the reach of this service, and ensuring that we do not leave anyone behind in access to essential medicines. By this, it means that we now have the biggest medical drone delivery service in the whole world,”President Akufo-Addo said.
Speaking at the commissioning ceremony on Thursday, 24th September 2020, the President stated that even though some political actors went as far as making unfortunate, ill-considered statements about the drones, the Ghanaian people can all see how impactful this service has been, just within the past eighteen months of its operations.
“I am told over that some one hundred and twenty thousand (120,000) medical products have been delivered to several health facilities across the country from the various distribution centres. With the coming on stream of this fourth centre at Sefwi Wiawso, Zipline will be able to serve about two thousand (2,000) health facilities within their range,” he said.
Citing the example of one Charles Coffie, a 44-year-old driver in the Eastern Region, for example, who was saved by the supply of emergency blood products after he suffered severe bleeding during an operation, the President stated that “this is the kind of impact we are talking about”.