After a few minutes spent entering flight and insecticide treatment plans, a click of the start button on the tablet sets things in motion.
There’s a brisk rise in the clearly audible buzz as the unmanned aerial vehicle takes off.
Its mission is to spray and spread larvicide across the fields believed to be habitat for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Such was just an imaginary scenario back in the day as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as drones, were only seen hovering over to take pictures and to do a few other mapping activities.
Worse still, the drones made a name for themselves globally for their use in warfare, either dropping bombs, or doing reconnaissance activities on enemy territory.
Following the Government of Rwanda’s partnership with Charis Unmanned Aerial Solutions, a local drone technology company, sprayer drones could be used in the country to rid communities of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
This kind of drone is fitted with a 10-litre tank that can carry insecticide, follow pre-mapped routes and spray and spread it over fields that host mosquito larvae, which mostly live in stagnant water.
“While this has been used elsewhere, we believe this is an innovation in Rwanda because we are going to do things differently,” Eric Rutayisire Muziga, the company’s Chief Executive Officer told The New Times.
Such drones make sense where they replace labour-intensive and use of back-pack sprayers, which are deemed to be inefficient.
Muziga says the drones have the capacity to fly for about 15 minutes on a single battery and ability to spray an area of 40 hectares in a day.
Dr Aimable Mbituyumuremyi, the Division Manager for malaria and other parasitic diseases at Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), said they are finalising the partnership with the company with hope that the drone technology will bring more benefits in the fight against malaria.
“We are negotiating to see how this technology can help us in malaria control because the same technology has been used in other countries to control mosquitoes,” he said.