An aerial view of the Maasai Mara in Kenya. The image was taken from a sizzling air balloon.

Wingcopter Companions with Siemens Healthlineers for Drone Supply of Lab Samples in Africa

by DRONELIFE Employees Author Ian M. Crosby

Wingcopter GmbH has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Siemens Healthineers Center East, Southern & Jap Africa to develop and implement an built-in drone supply answer for the transportation of laboratory diagnostics supplies and medical provides in Africa. Leveraging each Siemens Healthineers’ Laboratory Diagnostics testing capabilities and Wingcopter’s drone supply companies will end in enhanced diagnostics and faster remedy. The answer will make use of each corporations’ most up-to-date digital expertise, together with extremely automated drone supply in addition to Laboratory Info Techniques able to precisely monitoring and reporting outcomes on to sufferers.

“At Siemens Healthineers, we’re dedicated to offering entry to care for everybody,” stated Ole Maloy, Managing Director of Siemens Healthineers Center East, Southern & Jap Africa. “Our partnership with Wingcopter will look to bridge the prevailing gaps in healthcare infrastructure, offering equitable and reasonably priced entry to diagnostic testing and medical provides.”

Utilizing Wingcopter’s supply drones alongside Siemens Healthineers’ laboratory diagnostics services will allow speedy automated 2-way supply of samples, medication and different medical merchandise. Wingcopter will pilot the drones, protecting a variety of 75 kilometers whereas sustaining the chilly chain always. These drone supply networks will allow the centralization of pattern testing and medical consumables distribution, resulting in larger entry to analysis, speedy turnaround time, improved effectivity and decrease prices.

“We’re satisfied that we now have discovered the right accomplice for our daring ambitions to enhance and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals on the African continent and past,” stated Wingcopter GmbH CEO and Co-founder Tom Plümmer. “Partnering with Siemens Healthineers will convey us a giant step nearer to the aim we’re working tirelessly in the direction of: to make an actual social impression worldwide for many who want it most by way of quick, dependable and sustainable drone supply networks within the sky.”

Based on a report from the World Financial institution and WHO, roughly half of the world’s inhabitants lacks entry to essential well being companies comparable to well timed diagnostic companies. Along with rising accessibility for diagnostic testing, the drone supply answer could have a constructive impression on the UN Sustainable Growth Targets, together with entry to well being, potential reductions in carbon footprint and the danger of highway accidents, and capability constructing on drone operations. Wingcopter intends to create jobs throughout the drone business by coaching native younger folks, an method it beforehand utilized in Malawi the place its present operations are run by an all-local, majority-female crew.

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Ian attended Dominican College of California, the place he obtained a BA in English in 2019. With a lifelong ardour for writing and storytelling and a eager curiosity in expertise, he’s now contributing to DroneLife as a workers author.

Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, an expert drone companies market, and a fascinated observer of the rising drone business and the regulatory surroundings for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles centered on the business drone house and is a global speaker and acknowledged determine within the business.  Miriam has a level from the College of Chicago and over 20 years of expertise in excessive tech gross sales and advertising for brand new applied sciences.
For drone business consulting or writing, Email Miriam.

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