In a first, drone used to deliver medicines in remote Meghalaya health centre

PTI, Nov 26, 2021, 8:00 PM IST

Image Source : SCREENGRAB/ @SANGMACONRAD

Shillong: In a first in the country, a drone was on Friday successfully deployed to deliver medicines to a remote primary health centre in Meghalaya’s West Khasi Hills district, 25 km away from the district headquarter, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said.

“Today we launched a pilot of India’s 1st Medicine Delivery via Hybrid e-VTOL drone in #Meghalaya from Nongstoin to Maweit PHC covering a distance of 25 Kms in less than 25 mins,” Conrad said on his social media handles.

Drone technology can change the future of healthcare. Today we launched a pilot of India’s 1st Medicine Delivery via Hybrid e-VTOL drone in #Meghalaya from Nongstoin to Maweit PHC covering a distance of 25 Kms in less than 25 mins@narendramodi @mansukhmandviya @JM_Scindia pic.twitter.com/XbWPLAqGa5

— Conrad Sangma (@SangmaConrad) November 26, 2021

He said, “Drone technology can change the future of healthcare. This is a unique project that will transform the healthcare supply chain to a hard-to-reach population.

According to the Chief Minister, the tech support was provided by innovation team Tech Eagle, Smart Village Movement in collaboration with the State Health department. Sources said an e-VTOL (Virtual take off and landing ) Drone AquilaX2 was used for the deliveries.

A senior health department official said the deployment of a drone to deliver medicines was undertaken on a pilot basis and today’s deployment was successful, reducing the time from 3 hours to less than half an hour.