Designing solutions for global health challenges
Drones. Robotics. 3D Printing. These have been buzz words in the scientific community for years now, but not so much in the field of Global Health – until now. The archipelago country of Vanuatu, remotely located in the South Pacific Ocean, is the “only country in the world to make its childhood vaccine program officially drone-dependent.” With Vanuatu’s nearly impossible terrain for foot travel and dangerous conditions for boats, delivery by drone from Australian company Swoop Aero offers reliable, nearby, and effective retrieval of childhood vaccines for diseases such as hepatitis and tuberculosis. This is crucial to combat Vanuatu’s large percentage of children under 5 who do not receive all of their required shots, and it is made possible by Vanuatu’s government, UNICEF, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Australian government.
The implementation of this technology has already been called ‘life changing’ by some Vanuatu locals, who no longer have to trek several hours in tricky terrain to obtain vaccinations for their children. While the drone delivery system is technologically effective in the country, it’s important that it be culturally accepted as well. Even though most locals praise the new system, there still exist the long-standing cargo cults in the region, “whose adherents pray for valuables arriving from the sky.” Given that this new system involves just that, those in charge of implementing this technology realize that they must do so with caution.
Going forward, Swoop Aero plans to work with local experts to make this technology self-sustaining: through the use of 3-D printable parts, the country could eventually manufacture the drones itself. If effective, I believe this would show that the technological focus points in global health and the larger scientific community don’t always have to be so different.
I’ve spent a great deal of time in my engineering coursework learning about how different technological systems can fix a problem, and typically, the more sophisticated the system was, the better. More recently, I’ve learned somewhat of the opposite in my public health coursework; the backbone of many effective global health interventions is technological simplicity to encourage sustainability. But from what I can tell, that isn’t always the case, and drone delivery of vaccinations shows that—when done carefully—simplicity and advanced technology don’t have to be mutually exclusive in global health.
In certain cases, technologically advanced solutions can be just as feasible in developing countries as in developed ones, and we shouldn’t shy away from implementing them in global health interventions on the basis of their sophistication. Instead, we can follow Vanuatu’s example: supporting the well-researched technology with careful implementation and cultural respect.