Blood distribution by drones across India may soon become a reality

After the Indian Council of Medical Research successfully completed a trial run of blood bag delivery by drones under its iDrone initiative on Thursday, a senior official said that blood distribution by drones might soon be spread to the entire nation.

The effort continued the national aim of developing India's drone ecosystem. ICMR employed the 'i-DRONE' for the first time to distribute vaccines to remote locations during the COVID-19 epidemic.

'Today, we are transporting blood and blood-related products which are supposed to be kept at a low temperature. After the experiment, we found that not only can we maintain the temperature but there was also no damage to the products transported'. 'We sent another sample through an ambulance and if there are no differences in the samples sent using the two modes then drones will be used all over India,' said Dr Rajiv Bahl, the director general of ICMR.

Together with Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi, the Government Institute of Medical Sciences in Greater Noida, and Jaypee Institute of Information Technology in Noida, the ICMR has conducted the trial run as a ground-breaking validation study for the first time in the nation.

According to an official release, the first experimental flight transported 10 units of whole blood samples between the Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi and the Government Institute of Medical Sciences in Greater Noida in a direct line of sight.

Drones are already being used in several nations to transport organs, drugs, medical supplies, blood, vaccines, and more to remote, underdeveloped areas.