Soon after our sojourn in Madagascar, July 27
th
of 2016, a drone rose from the remote villages of Torotosy and Ampitavanana on
a humanitarian mission. It carried, or rather, had the potential to carry,
diagnostic blood samples and life-saving medicines to and from isolated
villagers to the Centre ValBio. Currently, as we well know, roads can prove
difficult to travel or impassable, and villagers needing medical attention can
be reduced to walking long distances to a hospital for appropriate care. Our
Malagasy hosts described a particular predicament to me during our hike in
Andapa. A remote village in southern Madagascar had a refrigerator, which for a
time preserved critical medicines for its populace. But, when the refrigerator
succumbed, repair was impossible, the medicines spoiled, and the sick were compelled
to forego care or travel a day – two if the weather was bad or if they had to
walk – to the nearest hospital with refrigerated medicines. Even supposing
medical personnel are dispatched to needy and remote areas, they cannot
necessarily move much faster - their pace and mobility are constrained by heavy
liquid nitrogen tanks that keep medicines cool in transit and other gear. It’s
a big problem. A former deputy director of the Gates Foundation Tuberculosis
delivery program, Dr. Small, cogitated on a solution from his present position
at Stonybrook’s Global Health Institute, and dispatched four students and a
drone to Madagascar for a trial flight over the trying roads between sickness
and cure in southeastern Madagascar. Two students struggled out to one of the
remote villages of Torotosy or Ampitavanana, two perched themselves at the
Centre ValBio, on its rooftop among the treetops. The drone lifted from the
village with its test cargo. When it arrived at ValBio, the pizza inside was
still hot. Just how much cooler medicines can be kept with such efficient
transit may prove transformative for countryside healthcare. Perhaps, the drone
has found its calling.
(Emma)
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