The Cross River State Government has called on Zipline, a drone-based medical delivery company, to reduce the cost of its services to enable the state to expand vaccine delivery to hard-to-reach communities.
The Director-General of the Cross River State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Vivien Otu, made the call on Wednesday during an event marking the success of a zero-dose intensification programme implemented by Zipline in partnership with the state government and the Ministry of Health.
Otu said the programme was designed to identify and vaccinate children who had not received any routine immunisation antigen, particularly those living in remote and riverine communities.
According to her, Zipline had been instrumental in transporting vaccines by drones to communities where poor roads, difficult terrain and waterways made conventional vaccine delivery challenging.
She said, “The project is good, but it is very, very expensive. We are talking with them, alongside other partners, because they have partners such as Gavi, Pfizer and UPS that are partnering with them to offer services.
“What Cross River State Government is asking is for them to reduce the cost of their implementation and services so that we will be able to afford them.”
Otu disclosed that more than 160 teams comprising vaccinators, recorders and mobilisers were trained and deployed across nine local government areas under the zero-dose programme.
She said the intervention had helped to reach about 3.9 million children with vaccine doses, adding that some of the beneficiaries also received nutrition commodities and deworming services.
The DG explained that many children in hard-to-reach communities faced multiple health challenges beyond lack of immunisation, including malnutrition and inadequate access to deworming services.
She said the state was also discussing the establishment of a second Zipline hub to extend coverage to more parts of Cross River.
Otu, however, noted that the expansion would depend on an agreement on the cost of the service. “We need to settle on the cost first, before we think about creating another hub that will cover the remaining part of Cross River State,” she said.
Also speaking, Zipline’s Commercial Director, Hannatu Adegboyega, said the company had been working with the Cross River State Government since 2023 to deliver vaccines and other medical commodities to underserved communities.
Adegboyega said Zipline had so far delivered more than 13 million vaccines through its operations in the state.
She said the company was interested in sustaining the partnership and expanding its delivery of essential medicines and other health commodities.
“We’ve delivered over 13 million vaccines. It’s been such a success story that we’re looking for how we can continue the process because it’s not something we want to end,” she said.
Adegboyega said Zipline also intended to support the state with logistics, storage and data collection as part of its broader health-system intervention.
She described Cross River’s terrain as challenging, particularly in communities where flooding, poor roads and waterways often prevented residents from accessing health facilities.
She said the drone delivery system had helped bridge the gap by taking vaccines and other medical supplies to agreed locations in difficult-to-reach communities.
Adegboyega said Zipline was also implementing similar interventions in other Nigerian states, including Bayelsa and Kano.
She declined to give the number of children reached by the company when asked, saying the figure needed to be confirmed to avoid releasing inaccurate data.