A drone carrying medical supplies is dispatched somewhere in Rwanda roughly every 50 seconds, and the company running the network now manages virtually all of the country's pharmaceutical supplies and deliveries. New reporting from the distribution center where the system began shows both what that has accomplished and what it has not.
Noella Mukanoheli, 42, was nine months pregnant and bleeding heavily in April. It took her three hours to see a doctor. She first rode 50 minutes by motorbike to the clinic serving her village, where no doctor was on staff. An ambulance then took two hours to cover roughly 10 miles to the nearest hospital because of the country's difficult roads. Her husband says she lost consciousness on the way. Doctors said she needed five liters of blood, a massive transfusion. The hospital did not have her blood type. Two drones delivered it within minutes, and she survived.
