First test flight of drone to transport medicine takes place in Trikala

In what might have seemed like science fiction a few years earlier, the first drone flight to deliver medicines was successfully completed in the Greek city of Trikala on Tuesday, with a drone taking off from the GiSeMi Hub in the city and flying to a pharmacy in Leptokarya.

"These are moments from the future and the not-too-distant future of our daily lives, about how we will be able in emergencies - that is what we are testing at the moment, at least - in real conditions and daily life to transport essential goods, such as medicines. Today it is one year, exactly, since the disaster in Karditsa and Ianos and if we had such a vehicle last year we could have solved the problems that had arisen at that time very quickly and simply," Trikala Mayor Dimitris Papastergiou said to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA).

He urged against being technophobic, adding that people should seek and find technological solutions where there were real problems.

As revealed during the event that preceded the test flight, the drone programme was developed by the local authority company e-Trikala SA, which participates in the European programme "Harmony" and is a national pilot scheme for a large-scale European project for the sustainable transport of pharmaceuticals to cities using drone flights.

The system will be used on a pilot basis for two months. The coordinator of the programme is University College London, with e-Trikala and the University of the Aegean participating on a local level.