Telecom
Zipline Delivers over 50,000 Doses of Routine Vaccines across Health Facilities in Cross River State
To accelerate access to vaccine inoculation, Zipline, the renowned drone delivery company, has supported the Cross River State Government in delivering over 50,000 doses of regular immunisation vaccines across multiple healthcare institutions in the State, marking a significant milestone for healthcare delivery. This was just within one month of the start of operations within the state.
This accomplishment represents a big step in the state’s effort at ensuring universal access to important healthcare services in the Cross River State’s outlying locations.
Ms. Catherine Odiase, Country Manager, Zipline Nigeria, said the company is dedicated to ensuring everyone has access to healthcare anywhere in the world.
“In the world today, it is important to expand healthcare access to reach people, no matter where they live. Locations should no longer be a barrier to receiving medical care”, said Catherine Odiase. “Our partnership with the Cross River State enables us to use our innovative drones to deliver medical commodities and vaccines to health facilities within 30 minutes of placing an order”.
Vaccine shortages have become a significant challenge at a number of healthcare institutions around the Cross River State due to limited storage facilities. This is changing, thanks to the bold decision of the Cross River State to partner with Zipline for the use of unmanned drones to access previously inaccessible communities with critical medical products, vaccines, and supplies within a reasonable time frame.
Vaccines including tetanus, polio, hepatitis B, yellow fever, measles, and even Covid-19 immunisations have been sent to health institutions in Cross River State. So far, at least 150 health facilities in 9 local government districts have benefitted from this game-changing technology, reaching over 50,000 infants, children, and mothers.
Esther Aju, a Routine Immunisation Focal Person from Ogoja Maternal Child Hospital, said in an interview, that prior to Zipline’s involvement in the delivery of these essential medicines and vaccines in the area, health officials struggled to receive vaccinations owing to the vast travel distance. She further said that parents had to be, on several occasions, rescheduled for other immunisation days due to shortages in vaccines. The reality was that many babies were missing their critical immunizations, leaving them vulnerable to deadly diseases.
“The thought of innocent children growing up and contracting childhood illnesses due to lack of access to vaccines terrified us as healthcare providers because we frequently struggle to access critical vaccines, causing infant babies to miss their immunisation dates.” This is one of the underlying elements that motivated the Cross River State to take urgent steps to avert the incident,” she said. “Immunisation has been more convenient and accessible since Zipline began serving our facility; we now get our immunisations within 5-10 minutes after placing our orders”; Esther Aju said.
Zipline’s influence extends beyond vaccination delivery. Following a severe cholera epidemic in the Ikom and Etung LGAs, Zipline stepped up once again, collaborating with the government to combat this deadly illness. The report from the State Ministry of Health reported 638 suspected cases and 17 deaths in only a few months, leaving communities reeling and seeking assistance. Thanks to their cooperation, almost 6000 residents were reached with important preventative measures.
Under the Water and Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) project, Zipline supported the delivery of Water and Sanitation Hygiene products to affected communities, including Orimekpang in Boki LGA, Effraya, Bendeghe-Ekiem, Abia, Ajasso in Etung LGA, Akparabong, and Okuni in Ikom LGA. These products ranged from sanitizers, hand washes, water purifiers, disinfectants, oral rehydration salts, drugs like Darrow’s full and half strength, Ciprofloxacin, Metronidazole. Additionally, 304 packages containing medications for treatment and management of cholera have been delivered to 14 facilities in Etung and Ikom.
Zipline is dedicated to extending its activities in Nigeria and other nations to revolutionize global healthcare delivery. Over the years, it has focused its operations on bridging the gap between medical services and marginalized areas by employing innovative technology and establishing partnerships to improve public health outcomes
MTN Nigeria’s commitment to digital innovation took center stage at MarkHack 4.0, the annual marketing and technology conference held at Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Friday, May 23, 2025, with the theme ‘Experience Ignited: Fueling the Customer’s Journey’.
L-R: Akinbulejo Onabolu, Head, Enterprise Segment, MTN Nigeria; Eneyi Obi, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Rise; Tobi Olanisimi, Marketing Manager, AB InBev; Martha Kayode, Marketing Head, PZ Cussonz; Sulaiman Shaibu, CEO, BFT Consulting Service and Daniel Adeyemi, Managing Editor, Condia Business at the MarkHack 4.0 Conference held at the Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos on Friday, May 23, 2025.
In a celebration of innovation, technology, and storytelling, the company also took home the award for Best Use of Data in a Marketing Campaign at the Nigeria MarTech (MarkHack 4.0) Awards Night. This award recognizes brands that have successfully transformed data into compelling narratives and actionable insights to meaningfully engage their audiences.
Akinbulejo Onabolu, Senior Manager, Segment Management, Enterprise Business at MTN, joined a panel to discuss the power of immersive technologies on consumer behaviour. Drawing from MTN’s launch of its 5G Digital Experience Centre in Abuja last year, Onabolu highlighted the rapid evolution of immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) stating “Our 5G centre is a sandbox for our customers to come and see how technology can shape things. At the launch event, we unveiled a smart city to customers, clients and dignitaries in attendance, with gaming and other tech experiences.”
On the intersection of data, AR and VR, he added: “Co-creating with MTN takes our minds to a platform where different partners, companies and creators can bring their buildings, products and businesses for people to see via augmented reality and connectivity, just swiping through and following through that journey.
“As a part of impacting our customer’s lives, a few years ago, we also played around with the Metaverse and we ended up creating some of our back-office processes with some of our customer journeys on augmented reality and virtual reality such that a customer somewhere can engage with a virtual agent to solve real life problems and integrating that back into our operating systems. As an organization, at a lot of our events, you will find a lot of AR and VR experiences.”
Speaking on how MTN is embedding immersive technology into its day-to-day operations, he explained that the company is prioritizing both internal capability development and external engagement. “85% of our organization has undergone extensive training on AI and that already is a great addition to our daily lives. We’re using it to do things differently, developing user journeys and brainstorming different things. In terms of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, we are working with organizations to develop training programs which we use internally.”
He described the bases for this tech as stable connectivity, high bandwidth, high speed and low latency. “Over the past year, we’ve doubled our 5G capacity across the entire country. Wherever you are, you’ll probably start to pick up 5G. With our FibreX service, we’re going way beyond connectivity to create the systems and platforms to support the ecosystem, AR and VR. In addition to this, we’re also engaging regulatory systems to start to tease this out and build the proper governance.”
The session, moderated by Daniel Adeyemi, Managing Editor at Condia Business, also featured insights from leaders in FMCG, consulting, and global marketing, all underscoring the transformative potential of immersive technologies for Africa’s future.
MTN Nigeria has announced a massive capital expenditure (CAPEX) drive for 2025, nearly doubling its investment to almost 900 billion Naira, as it seeks to significantly enhance network service quality in major cities like Lagos and Abuja and extend improvements to other areas.
Karl Toriola
This financial commitment, up from a combined total of approximately 440 billion Naira spent in 2023 and 2024, was detailed by MTN Nigeria CEO, Dr. Karl Toriola, during a recent interview on Arise TV.
Toriola highlighted that a key focus of the increased CAPEX will be on “putting additional capacity in a city like Lagos, particularly in Abuja, where you have a lot of buildings coming up, you need additional sites because there are coverage issues.”
Beyond these critical urban centres, the investment aims to bolster network resilience and ensure power stability for its infrastructure nationwide. This includes proactively addressing site outages by ensuring timely payment for operational necessities such as diesel for generators, a persistent challenge in the Nigerian operating environment
The CEO outlined the comprehensive nature of the upgrade process, which involves “placing orders formally, opening letters of credit, and then the equipment gets shipped in and installed.” He added that where necessary, MTN will be “acquiring new sites” and “laying fiber to the base station to create better stability.”
While the immediate CAPEX is geared towards improving existing service quality and capacity, this investment aligns with MTN’s broader goals, which include enhancing financial inclusion in underserved rural areas, suggesting a long-term vision for network expansion and service improvement that extends beyond metropolitan areas.
Customers are expected to begin experiencing the positive impact of these investments with a “significant improvement in quality of service” anticipated by the end of the second quarter or early in the third quarter of 2025, according to Toriola.
Airtel Nigeria, telecom service provider, has announced that its AI-powered Spam Alert Service issued over 9.6 million spam alerts between March 13 and May 20, 2025.
As part of its ongoing commitment to protecting customers from unwanted and potentially fraudulent communications, Airtel designed the AI Spam Alert service to analyze traffic patterns and detect anomalies.
In the period since launch the AI pinpointed a total of 9,667,008 SMS as potential spam messages in the two months after its launch.
Of these, the system identified 528,080 on-net (Airtel-to-Airtel) and 9,138,928 off-net (from other networks) numbers as suspected spam messages, demonstrating the scale of the threat and Airtel’s advanced processing capability.
Airtel Nigeria is a subsidiary of Airtel Africa.
Commenting on this development, Dinesh Balsingh, CEO, Airtel Nigeria, restated Airtel`s commitment to protecting its customers.
“This milestone demonstrates the strength of our AI-driven infrastructure in combating the growing menace of spam and scam calls. At Airtel Nigeria, we are focused on connecting Nigerians and ensuring their safety and confidence while using our network.
“We understand that trust is the cornerstone of digital communication. That’s why we’ve invested heavily in intelligent systems that not only detect potential threats but also learn and evolve with data. As threats become more sophisticated, so will our solutions. As a company, we remain focused on leading the industry in innovation and customer satisfaction, ensuring that every Nigerian can enjoy a safer and smarter digital experience,” Mr. Balsingh said.
The Spam Alert Service is part of Airtel Nigeria’s broader strategy to integrate artificial intelligence into its core offerings to deliver smarter and safer experiences for its customers across the country.
Recall that the Spam Alert Service was launched on March 13, 2025. A groundbreaking and free solution from Airtel, it notifies users in real-time of suspected spam SMS messages by analyzing over 250 parameters.
The Airtel AI Spam Alert Service is available to all Airtel subscribers on smartphones and feature phones.
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