2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读五十六

Drone deliveries are advancing in health care

无人机投递在医疗卫生行业取得进展

No longer just in Africa,but in Europe and America too

不仅是在非洲，在欧美也是如此

A few years ago Jeff Bezos made a prediction.By2018his e-commerce empire,Amazon,would be delivering items by drone.

几年前，杰夫·贝佐斯曾预言，到2018年，其电子商务帝国亚马逊将使用无人机递送货品。

Prime Air has yet to launch.But startups are making progress—mostly in health care,where they are vying to tap into a lucrative,$70bn global market in health-care logistics.As they deal with regulators and investors, these firms are charting the course for other aerial deliveries.

虽然Prime Air（亚马逊的送货无人机）尚未投入运营，但一些初创企业正在取得进展（主要是在医疗保健领域），它们正在竞相争夺一个利润丰厚、价值高达700亿美元的全球医疗保健物流市场。在同监管机构和投资者打交道的过程中，这些公司正在为航空运输开辟航线。

One of the best known is Zipline,based in San Francisco.It took off in Rwanda in2016,where it is now a national on-demand medical drone network,delivering150medical products,mostly blood and vaccines,to hard-to-reach places.

其中最为人所知的是总部位于旧金山的Zipline。这家公司自2016年于卢旺达开展业务以来，目前已经建立起一个全国性的按需医疗无人机网络，向那些（地面交通）难以前往的地方运送150种医疗产品（主要是血液和疫苗）。

Maternal mortality rates are declining thanks to the delivery of blood. Other firms have used drones to supply medicines in Bhutan,Malawi and Papua New Guinea.Patients in many Swiss hospitals can receive results on the day a sample is taken.

由于输血得以保障，产妇的死亡率正在下降。其他一些公司则在不丹、马拉维和巴布亚新几内亚使用无人机供应药品。瑞士许多医院的患者可以在采样当天就收到化验结果。

Zipline is expanding into Ghana and,later this year,into North Carolina, an American state with many out-of-the-way rural medical facilities.It wants to serve700m people in the next three to four years.

Zipline正在把业务扩展到加纳，并在今年晚些时候扩展至北卡罗来纳州（该州的许多医疗设施都地处偏远的农村）。Zipline希望在未来3至4年内为7亿人提供服务。

For governments and regulators nervous about allowing drones to roam the skies,health-care deliveries offer a compelling reason to give it a go. Drones can fall out of the sky,collide with other air traffic,create perceived privacy concerns and make a noise.

对于政府和监管机构来说，放任无人机在空中飞行让他们感到担忧，而医疗投递则提供了一个令人信服的理由让它们放手一试。无人机可能会从空中坠落、可能会和其他的空中交通工具相撞、可能会引发人们对于隐私的担忧、还可能会制造噪音。

All this is hard to justify when they are delivering a light bulb.When they carry life-saving medicines the calculation is different.It is also easier,says Ben Marcus,founder of AirMap,a drone-technology firm,because health-care deliveries typically happen between a limited number of fixed sites,not to and from innumerable doorsteps.

如果用无人机来运送一枚灯泡，那么这些都成为问题了。但如果用无人机来运送救命的药品时，这些都不成问题了。无人机技术公司AirMap的创始人本·马库斯说，这些问题很容易解决，因为医疗投递往往是往来于有限固定的地点之间，而不是在家家户户的门口之间。

Like most fast-growing startups,drone firms are coy about profitability but say they are generating revenue.Investors look convinced.On May