ICMR to use drone to transport tuberculosis samples, drugs in Telangana

Indian Council of Medical Research headquarters in New Delhi

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will transport tuberculosis sputum samples and drugs with the help of drones in Telangana's Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district as part of the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP).

The six-month-long feasibility study, which begins in December, will be conducted along with AIIMS-Bibinagar, and connect community and primary health centres (PHC) and tuberculosis units in the district.

The New Delhi-based ICMR, the apex body for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, will use unmanned aerial vehicles provided by TSAW Drones, a startup, for the project.

This will be the first of its kind long-term drone delivery project in the country and follows a study in Himachal Pradesh’s Lahaul in October to assess the feasibility of medical deliveries through drones in high-altitude regions, an ICMR note reviewed by Moneycontrol showed.

ICMR zeroed in on Yadadri Bhuvanagiri due to its large tribal population, hilly terrain (which exacerbates inaccessibility) and other aspects, which the research body found the district to be lagging in when compared to others.

"This is one of the districts where we were able to find out that there is no facility for diagnostics of tuberculosis at PHC (primary healthcare level)," Sumit Aggarwal, scientist and programme officer, Division of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, ICMR told Moneycontrol.

Tuberculosis has been a public health concern in India, which accounts for 27 percent of global cases of the disease.

In its recent The Global Tuberculosis Report 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) said while India improved detection of the disease, it missed major milestones.

With this study, ICMR aims to reduce the turnaround time for detecting tuberculosis.

"We want to reduce turnaround time -- from the first detection of a suspected case to a final diagnosis. We want to reduce that. Secondly, we want to see if we can reduce out of pocket expenditure for patients with the help of drones," Aggarwal added.

ICMR is also going to deliver via drones directly observed treatment, short-course (DOTS, also known as TB-DOTS), a name given to the tuberculosis control strategy recommended by the WHO.

"In one flight the drones can DOTS and it can return with sputum samples. We want to see how impactful this is, and whether this is cost effective,” he added.

ICMR will apply the learnings from drone-delivery studies conducted in the Northeast for the Telangana study. Based on the studies that it conducted in Nagaland and Manipur, the research body came up a standard operating procedure.

Not just Telangana, over the next few months, ICMR will take up a drone-delivery study in Karnataka as well.

In Lahaul, blood samples and medications were transported via drones at a height 11,000-13,000 feet in temperatures ranging from 4 to -10 degrees Celsius.