고등학교 공통영어1 (NE능률 민병천) 연계 글

Imagine a small clinic in a remote mountain village, three hours by road from the nearest blood bank. A woman has just given birth there, and she is losing a great deal of blood. In an emergency like this, the nurses used to call for a truck and hope that it would arrive in time. Today, in a few countries, nurses can send a text message and receive blood from the sky.

In 2016, Rwanda began using small drones to carry blood to hospitals in rural areas. When a hospital needs blood, a health worker places an order by text message. A drone then flies to the hospital and drops the package, which floats down on a small parachute.

According to a study published in 2022, these flights in Rwanda saved not only time but also blood. On average, blood sent by drone arrived more than an hour sooner than it would have by road. The amount of blood that went to waste at these health facilities also fell by about two-thirds. In 2019, Ghana launched a similar service to deliver not only blood but also vaccines and other medicines. Such flights are especially useful where steep hills or poor roads make a trip by truck long and slow.

Not everyone welcomes these flights, however. Some people have raised the concern that the buzzing of drones flying over their homes could disturb their daily lives. Others dislike the idea that a drone with a camera might record their yards and families. There is also the worry that a drone could fall from the sky and hurt someone on the ground. Weather can cause problems, too. Researchers who studied drone flights in Ghana reported that bad weather sometimes delayed deliveries by a few hours or even a day. On some of those days, the packages had to travel by road instead. The fact that bad weather can keep drones on the ground means that roads and trucks are still necessary.

For now, the task is to make drone flights not only safe but also acceptable to the people who live below them. If that can be done, fewer nurses will have to wait for a truck while a patient is losing blood.