Addressing healthcare disparities through collaborative innovation and drone delivery

• Boehringer Ingelheim continues to partner with local start-ups, NGOs and communities to improve access to life-saving products in remote areas and make vaccine delivery more efficient and cost-effective
• Collaboration efforts include a solution with Zipline, a company specializing in on-demand drone delivery
• Cowtribe, a last-mile veterinary delivery social start-up in Ghana with whom Boehringer Ingelheim has been working since 2019, is one partner for the drone delivery vaccine project
• Through its flagship initiative Making More Health (MMH) and other programs worldwide, Boehringer Ingelheim aims to positively impact the lives of 50 million people in vulnerable communities around the world by 2030

Why it matters:

• Improving poultry immunity, health, and productivity through vaccination, along with animal vaccination against rabies, is crucial to enhance health equity for both humans and animals in Africa
• In the first half of 2023, Cowtribe, through its logistics platform based on demand optimization, conducted 292 drone flights together with Zipline to distribute 1.4 million poultry vaccine doses to nearly 5,000 rural smallholder farmers in Ghana
• In July 2023, a rabies vaccination campaign in Kenya was implemented based on the learnings from the collaboration in Ghana, also involving two local NGOs – Core Health and Wealth International (CHW) and Golden Age and Albinism Support and Protection Program (GAASPP)
• CHW played a crucial role in the anti-rabies vaccination campaign through its extensive connections to local hospitals and health facilities
• GAASPP helped mobilized local communities to bring their dogs for vaccination and streamlined administration of drone-delivered vaccines
• Another partner is Drop Access that developed VacciBox, a portable solar-powered refrigerator that makes possible the delivery of vaccines to remote areas: 2,000 dogs were vaccinated in only one day at eight different sites in Kenya, with a plan to distribute additional 10,000 doses in the near future

"We have worked hard to build trust and create effective partnerships on the ground, with the shared objective of creating better access to essential health services," shares Ayman Eissa, Lead Sustainable Development at Boehringer Ingelheim IMETA. “We firmly believe that creating more sustainable, equitable solutions to interconnected human and animal healthcare challenges in underserved communities requires a holistic approach – innovation, collaboration and enabling an ecosystem of impact.”

More info:

• Read more about this successful partnership in the latest edition of the Global Governance Project. This publication will be distributed during the World Health Summit 2023 taking place on October 15-17.
• To find out more about Making More Health, visit: https://www.makingmorehealth.org/ 
• To find out more about Zipline, visit: https://www.flyzipline.com/ 
• To find out more about Cowtribe, click here: https://www.cowtribe.com/ 
• To find out more about GAASPP, visit: https://gaasppkenya.org/
• To find out more about Drop Access, visit: https://dropaccess.org/
• To find out about CHW, visit: https://corehw.org/

About Boehringer Ingelheim

Boehringer Ingelheim is working on breakthrough therapies that transform lives, today and for generations to come. As a leading research-driven biopharmaceutical company, the company creates value through innovation in areas of high unmet medical need. Founded in 1885 and family-owned ever since, Boehringer Ingelheim takes a long-term, sustainable perspective. More than 53,000 employees serve over 130 markets in the two business units Human Pharma and Animal Health. Learn more at www.boehringer-ingelheim.com  

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