Celebrating a year of Zipline delivery in Bayelsa State

In January 2022, Zipline launched its partnership with the government of Bayelsa State to use new technology to improve access to crucial medical supplies. In February 2023, Zipline made its first deliveries, via drone, of family planning commodities to primary health centers at Agbere and Ofoni. 

A year later, Zipline and the Ministry of Health in Bayelsa have successfully helped improve health outcomes by increasing access to crucial commodities. 

Logistics is extremely challenging in Bayelsa, since the majority of the state is covered by water. Bayelsa’s rivers, swamps, and mangroves make transportation difficult—an issue that’s exacerbated by seasonal flooding. Some communities in Bayelsa are only reachable by a four–to-six-hour boat ride, and deliveries have traditionally been unreliable. 

To address this, the Bayelsa State Government partnered with Zipline to launch on-demand autonomous drone delivery from a distribution center in the Yenagoa Local Government Area (LGA). Since then, Zipline has begun shipping medical supplies to 228 healthcare facilities across all eight LGAs in Bayelsa.  

To date, the Ministry of Health in Bayelsa has improved access to critical medical supplies by supporting Zipline’s more than 14,842 deliveries from its distribution center in Yenagoa. These have included 683,581 doses of vaccines, essential medicines, treatments for tropical diseases, HIV/AIDS treatment and therapies, family planning commodities, and malnutrition treatment supplies such as ready-to-use therapeutic food. What’s more, access to many of these facilities has historically posed a challenge in the last-mile delivery of essential medicines, vaccines, and other health commodities due to the terrain of Bayelsa State. 

“We are working toward universal access to healthcare for people who live in Bayelsa State,” said the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Pabara Newton Igwele. “We see drone delivery as a valuable tool in our work to improve health equity for all Nigerians.” 

In the future, Zipline and the Ministry of Health in Bayelsa could collaborate on building a more resilient supply chain beyond the last mile, says Nengi Lawson, head of health systems integration for Zipline in Bayelsa. “We see opportunities to help strengthen the entire medical logistics system in Bayelsa and build a better, more integrated medical supply chain in the state.”    

In the near term, Zipline plans on scaling existing use cases, bringing on-demand delivery of medical supplies to even more doctors, nurses, and clinicians at healthcare facilities in Bayelsa.