Minister of Health Fahad Al-Jalajel inspected NUPCO’s fleet of drones and helicopters on Monday. (SPA)

Updated 59 sec ago

Arab News

June 02, 2025

• Authorities say the initiative will cut delivery times for medical supplies from an average of 1 hour to just 6 minutes
• The drones, operated by Medical supplies and logistics company NUPCO, will be stationed at 6 major medical centers in Mina, Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat

MAKKAH: A new service to transport medicine using drones during Hajj is a result of two years of intensive studies and experiments, Saudi Arabia’s health minister told Arab News on Monday.

“This modern technology aims to deliver medicines on a large scale during the Hajj season while reducing the time required to deliver medical supplies to just six minutes, compared to 90 minutes using ground transportation,” Saudi Health Minister Fahad Al-Jalajel said. 

The service will remove obstacles faced by medicine deliveries, the minister said, such as those caused by vehicular and human congestion at the holy sites, where nearly 1.25 million pilgrims are expected to gather to take part in the Hajj, a key pillar of Islam, which begins on June 4 and continues until June 9.

Al-Jalajel said trials over the past two years allowed for system safety testing, including ensuring that high temperatures, which can get unbearably hot at pilgrimage locations, do not damage the medicine. 

The drones are equipped with precise cooling systems and are subjected to multiple temperature tests during takeoff and landing, he said.

The drone initiative is part of the comprehensive healthcare transformation taking place in the  Kingdom, under the Saudi Vision 2030 program, which seeks to reform the country, including developing healthcare services for residents and visitors.

“One of the most notable achievements of this transformation is the establishment of the Seha Virtual Hospital, the largest in the world according to the Guinness World Records.”

The virtual hospital, which is linked to the Kingdom’s Sehaty health app, serves more than 200 hospitals, and is accessible to all individuals in Saudi Arabia without exception.

“The Kingdom is applying advanced technologies in the fields of robotic surgery, stroke management, and the use of artificial intelligence in health services, reflecting the serious trend towards digitizing the health sector,” Al-Jalajel said.

These experiences, the minister said, have also become a source of inspiration for many countries around the world that seek to learn about and benefit from them.

The health ministry will continue to anticipate global health challenges and provide pioneering and appropriate solutions, Al-Jalajel said, promising that pilgrims will witness the use of more advanced technologies during Hajj in the coming years.

source https://www.arabnews.com/node/2603143/saudi-arabia