Agile Health Governance? The Experiment of Medical Drones in the Management of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Ghana
Une gouvernance sanitaire agile ? L’expérience des drones médicaux dans la gestion de la pandémie du Covid-19 au Ghana
Abstract
In 2020, Ghana becomes the first country in the world to use Zipline’s drones to deliver Covid-19 test samples to the Noguchi Memorial Institute, the country’s largest medical testing laboratory. The entities involved in this experiment aim to find rapid logistical and managerial solutions to control the pandemic. In terms of research, the studies carried out during this period addressed many aspects of the crisis. However, they ignored the laboratories that were producing data on the pandemic and which, as a result, were at the heart of health emergency policies. The example of the Noguchi Memorial Institute, however, allows us to identify the ongoing development of agile practices at the foundation of health governance today. Based on an ethnography conducted one year after the pandemic in Accra, and drawing on recent research on global health, infrastructure, and technological experimentation in Africa, this paper reports on how the instantaneous logistics of drones are transforming the experience of biomedical research in emergency contexts. It shows that the adoption of drones is leading to the emergence of agile governance, redefining laboratory life and creating imaginaries of better health care.
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