1. New technology for an old disease
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for tuberculosis sample transport in Papua New Guinea --
September 2014

2. Papua New Guinea 22 provinces Capital: Port Moresby/NCD
Population: 7 million
More than 800 ethnic groups
80% remote rural populations
MSF presence: OCA & OCP
OCP TB program in Gulf since May 2014

3. Tuberculosis burden Incidence - 346/100 000 Prevalence - 534/100 000
3rd cause of morbidity & mortality
HIV/TB Coinfection:10%
DRTB - 4.9% in new and 23% in retreatment
Poor program outcomes
> 50% PTB diagnosed without smear
National success rate 69% (27% in Gulf)
High defaulter rate: officially 19% but reported as high as 75%

4. Project set-up Close collaboration with NTP
Central TB diagnostic and treatment centre
Decentralized patient follow-up
Average 50 patients enrolled /month
75% new cases
68% PTB
4% DRTB
25% under 15 years old
Decentralised diagnosis and follow-up is the key to the success of

5. Challenges in Gulf
Difficult access to remote health centers
Biggest swamp in the world
Only one road to go to the capital of the province
Bad sea several months per year.
Need to be innovative to bring diagnostic samples to MSF laboratory

6. Medical needs Medical-operational request:
How to move Tuberculosis diagnostic samples from remote health centers to MSF laboratory in shortest possible time.
Pre-requisite :
System simple to use
All season & Robust to face difficult weather conditions
Safe and robust case to transport Tuberculosis samples

7. Matternet Profile American company based in California
Already made a test in Haiti in 2012
UAV
Electric system
Up to 28km

8. UAVs trial

9. Results Papua New Guinea authorities supportive to the trial
Feasibility test
Test with a 500 gram load
Good in wind up to 36 km/hour
Good acceptance from the population
But…
Short range so far
Need human action to swap batteries
Still a product in development and not yet mature

10. Questions & future Is this technology too young to be reliable?
Can we deploy it and if so can we scale it up?
Can we afford it?
Can we technically handle it internally or we will always need external support
Will it be accepted in other countries?
Where are we now?
Contacts ongoing with other companies working on this technology
Hopefully we will do another trial phase in 2015
More questions than answers

11. Acknowledgement Ministry of Health – Papua New Guinea
Civil Aviation Authorities – Papua New Guinea
Provincial Health Department – Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea
For facilitating and authorizing this trial
Matternet for binging technology and expertise
OCP MSF team for organizing and coordinating this trial phase.