USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program

Pharmaceutical and other health commodities become waste when they’re expired, damaged, or otherwise unable to be used. An excess of donations from the 2014 Ebola outbreak contributed to an existing buildup of unusable health commodities across Guinea, taking up larger and larger volumes of space in warehouses and storerooms and impeding the smooth operation of the public health supply chain. Guinea’s lack of incinerators appropriate for the disposal of pharmaceuticals and other medical waste meant that most waste could not be disposed of locally.

Working with GLOBHE , the project team recently completed an in-depth landscape analysis of the various actors, objectives, and lessons learned from use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the development context. The analysis included six key case studies of UAVs used in health supply chains in Madagascar, Malawi, the Maldives, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, and Sweden to highlight successes, challenges, and recurring themes across this developing sector. Staff analyzed the three different types of UAVs (fixed wing, multi-rotor, and hybrid) to evaluate comparative advantages and disadvantages....