Fighting Africa's Fake-Drugs Monster

Using free enterprise to save lives in Africa

With no money, but a wealth of innovation, Ghanaian libertarian entrepreneur Bright Simons created an SMS-based system that is helping Nigeria fight a deadly onslaught of counterfeit medicines. The remedy is so successful it is now being tested in Ghana, and considered by other African states, to stem an avalanche that’s killing hundreds of thousands of people each year. From The Daily Maverick (South Africa): "mPedigree’s innovation is a simple solution that allows consumers to check whether the medicine they are about to give their children, or consume themselves, is safe and legitimate."

It continues: "'The service is very straight-forward. The manufacturer undertakes to put a unique code on the medicine that has a scratch panel which is easy for people to culturally integrate because it works in the same way as buying airtime for mobile phones.' The SMS-based service is free to consumers who scratch to find the code on the drugs they have bought. 'The consumer sends an SMS with the code to a service that verifies the drugs,' said Simons. The SMS is quickly answered with a response that says 'OK' or 'NO'. OK means that the medicine is authentic and safe to consume. 'NO' means the medicine is fake and could be life-threatening. 'The next line gives the name of the medicine and a picture of the box that can easily be compared by visual inspection to give added confidence. We also give consumers the expiry date and batch number.'"

More: "The success of the project, says Simons, is because of partnerships with world-class brands like Hewlett-Packard that manage the services’ infrastructure in Europe. 'The pharmaceutical industry will not just allow their systems to be managed by a third party without a track record. There are issues of confidentiality, reliability, security and integrity.' Crucial to mPedigree’s success has been offering the pharmaceutical industry the assurance that the integrity of their data is protected. With news that counterfeit operations have set up shop in Nigeria the solution arrived not a moment too soon. Trials are currently underway in Ghana and Simons said the project is currently being considered for Lebanon, Tanzania and Rwanda. Predictably the innovation is garnering global attention and has won Simons a slew of awards. What’s more gratifying for Simons is that mPedigree is saving lives."

To comment on "Fighting Africa's Fake-Drugs Monster" post, click here.