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Academics undertook a comparative economic study of the costs and cost-effectiveness of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) versus motorcycles in Liberia, for transportation of laboratory samples.
Managing transportation logistics are critical for keeping outbreaks at bay. The Liberian Ministry of Health now contracts with Riders for Health to manage its transportation logistics and fleet of vehicles. In 2017, they responded to 40 outbreaks identified across the country. These outbreaks could have spread widely had samples not reached the laboratories quickly.
Salifu Jabang, head technician at Riders for Health, The Gambia on why motorcycles work for delivering healthcare in his homeland.
We are transforming how we collect and analyse data to allow health workers to have more time to spend in communities, to save money and time on data administration improve our service to save more lives in the countries where we work.
Therese Drammeh, Country Director of Riders for Health The Gambia talks about some of the issues the country faces and about how the Riders solution.
The question of gender confronted Riders from the outset. Some people said that women should not ride motorcycles. But that made no sense to us as so many of the health workers who needed reliable transport to do their jobs were - of course - women.
Riders' teams from across four country programmes spent a week workshopping the components of Riders' unique system. The aim was to create a manual that ensure all teams are following the same rigorous practices and could be used by new programmes as Riders prepares to expand across the continent.
