Chinese tech company XAG has established a 5m-yuan fund to set up a drone disinfectant operation to curb the coronavirus outbreak

The coronavirus has now spread across more than 20 countries across the world and has become a global health emergency. To address the urgent need for increasing disease prevention measures, the Chinese agriculture technology company XAG announced on Friday that it would set up a five-million-yuan (€649k) special fund on coronavirus response, calling for voluntary drone disinfection operations in China, which is hardest hit by the epidemic.

XAG is actively working hard to combat the contagious disease with innovative technologies and by assisting local governments on public health and safety. The fund will enable XAG’s agricultural drone users to receive the much needed technical drone support to effectively carry out aerial disinfectant sprays that help curb the spread of the virus, especially in rural villages with weaker health systems and poorer sanitation conditions.

Disinfecting actions

Disinfecting actions would be taken under the permission of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and relevant government authorities. During the nationwide drone disinfection operation, XAG will cover all the spare parts and maintenance expenses for those who voluntarily engage. Also, strict qualification approval and standard operation procedure (SOP) are implemented to ensure safety and legitimacy.

According to the Novel Coronavirus Treatment Proposal (Fourth Edition) published by the National Health Commission of China, the coronavirus outbreak has mainly travelled via respiratory droplets, but can also spread by touching contaminated surfaces.

Dr Mara Van Kerkhove, a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO)‘s emergency committee, also confirmed the possibility of coronavirus spreading via fomites.

What can be an accurate way of releasing disinfectants?

The autonomous precision spraying tool (the agricultural drone), can be a highly effective alternative to accurately release disinfectants over public places. Compared with traditional disinfection approaches conducted by hands or lorry, drones can be directed to spray where it is needed and cover a wider area, helping to improve public hygiene and reducing the risk of virus transmission through surface contact.

In China’s Shandong province, XAG’s drone fleets were deployed by a crop protection team on 28 January to disinfect a local community of over 300,000 square metres in less than four hours.

Founded in 2007, XAG is a world-leading agriculture technology company with 12 years of technical experience in the unmanned aerial system (UAS) and six years of practical experience in innovative field applications.

Having 42,000 agricultural drones in operation, XAG has served 6.37 million farmers with precision crop protection services on 20 million hectares of farmland.

To empower the next-gen global farmers, XAG is dedicated to building digital farming infrastructure, developing precision farming equipment, such as robots, drones, AI and IoT, and creating smart agriculture ecosystems.