Reaching for the skies: How drone technology transforms Malawi's health system

See https://health.bmz.de/stories/young-m... The Malawi-German Drone and Data Project is using the latest drone technology to ensure that essential drugs and medical supplies can get through to patients in one of the poorest areas of one of the poorest countries in the world. For this and similar projects the African Drone and Data Academy teaches young Malawians and highly motivated students from countries across Africa how to design, build and maintain drones and analyse the data they collect. Since November 2020, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the German drone manufacturer Wingcopter have been working together on the pilot Drone and Data Aid project to support the establishment of flexible and rapid medicine supply chains to remote areas. Drone construction and operation is provided by Wingcopter, and the project is implemented on behalf of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and with funding from the EU. The project was also one of nine winners of a competition run by #SmartDevelopmentHack, which was launched by BMZ and the European Commission in the spring of 2020, to seek digital innovations to help meet the challenges posed by the pandemic. UNICEF and Wingcopter successfully pitched for funding to use drones for delivering temperature sensitive COVID vaccines from central pharmacies to remote health centres, and GIZ manages the two contracts in Malawi. A short film by Healthy DEvelopments (health.bmz.de) Script: Ruth Evans Director: Michael Hobeck Camera: Falco Seliger Editor and producer: Andreas Sawall