Zipline, the global leader in instant logistics, and the Ghana Ministry of Health today announced they have delivered one million COVID-19 vaccine doses via Zipline’s automated, on-demand delivery system. The partners also announced that Zipline has released select findings from a new third-party report, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which shows the impact of Zipline’s instant logistics system on Ghana’s health system. The data demonstrates significant increases in the availability, reliability and range of inventory at health facilities by addressing supply chain challenges like lack of visibility, uncertain demand forecasting and shipment delays.
“Our government’s investment in healthcare delivery is part of our larger mission to build a stronger, more agile health system that better serves the people of Ghana,” said Ghana’s Minister of Health, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu. “Over the past few years, we’ve made huge strides toward getting people the care they need, when and where they need it. And when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we were prepared to rapidly and equitably deliver vaccines to Ghanaians everywhere.”
The Government of Ghana and Zipline first began working together back in 2019. Today, Zipline operates at national scale, serving over 15 million people from six distribution centers, with two more expected to launch later this year. The service has expanded rapidly in Ghana to meet demand, scaling from serving 160 facilities in 2019 to nearly 2,300 today. In that time, Zipline Ghana has flown 13 million miles and delivered more than five million doses of vaccines, in addition to blood products and other essential medicines.
“Our partnership with Zipline has played a vital role in Ghana’s robust administration of COVID-19 vaccines to combat the pandemic and foster healthier communities,” said the Director General of Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye. “Through Zipline’s automated, on-demand delivery service and other efforts by the government, we’ve been able to rapidly and equitably distribute vaccines to many parts of the country.”
The independent study of Zipline’s impact was conducted by IDinsight and analyzed health facilities served by three of Zipline’s distribution centers in Ghana. The results indicate that Zipline meaningfully contributes to the Ghanaian government’s work to expand healthcare across the country, with a statistically significant impact on inventory availability and supply chain performance. Select findings show the Zipline system:
Shortened vaccine stockouts by 60%, and decreased inventory-driven missed vaccination opportunities by 42%Decreased days facilities were without critical medical supplies by 21%Increased the types of medicines and supplies stocked at health facilities by 10%
To put this in context, each year an average of one in three countries experience at least one stockout of at least one vaccine for at least one month. Stock management at the country level accounts for approximately 18% of these stockouts. These inventory challenges can make it more difficult for patients to receive vaccinations, contributing to already-declining immunization coverage worldwide that leaves millions of people partially or completely unvaccinated. Enhanced inventory management and health supply chain can help address these gaps and build healthier communities.
“We’re proud to play a key role in Ghana’s healthcare transformation,” said Daniel Marfo, Zipline’s Senior Vice President of Africa. “They’ve made critical investments in addressing the systemic challenges of the healthcare supply chain. These investments have had a profound impact on the availability of medicines and vaccines, enabling patients to reliably access the care they need.”
“Robust evidence gives companies like Zipline fuller visibility into how its service is used and whether desired outcomes are reached,” said Dr. Valentina Brailovskaya, the Principal Investigator on the evaluation. “We encourage Zipline and the Ghana Ministry of Health to keep the momentum of evidence generation and think critically about how to further improve medical supply chains and, ultimately, patient care.”
For more information on the new analysis and Zipline’s operations in Ghana, visit https://flyzipline.com/ghana-impact-evaluation.
