Health researchers have repeatedly highlighted the prevalence of fake and counterfeit drugs in Africa and Nigeria. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that more than 120,000 people a year die in Africa due to fake anti-malarial drugs either because the drugs were substandard or simply contained no active ingredients.
Let us bring it home to Nigeria. A 2015 snap poll released by NOIPolls Limited revealed that 18 percent of Nigerians have personally been victims of fake, counterfeit and substandard pharmaceutical products, medicines and drugs; and of those that have been victims, “Independent pharmacy/chemist” (68 percent) and “drug hawkers” (14 percent) have been identified as the two main points of purchase of fake drugs/medicines in Nigeria.
In addition, to this, The National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), burnt down counterfeit drugs worth more than N85 million in Jos in November last year.
This shows the serious problem Nigeria is having with counterfeit drugs.
To combat this problem, different innovation has been initiated. A good example is mPedigree. mPedigree allows users to send messages to a particular number to confirm the authenticity of a drug. This is good.
Another one is SwiftMedicals. Although their business model is different from mPedigree, SwiftMedicals also wants to contribute its own quota in the fight against fake drugs in Nigeria by offering a platform to buy original healthcare products from anywhere in Nigeria.
Prospective customers can buy prescribed and unprescribed drug on the platform. However, if you want to purchase a prescribed drug, you have to send the prescription to them via email and to help you identify a drug that requires a doctor’s prescription, POM (Prescription Only Medicine) is usually written beside it. Your ordered drugs will be delivered to you within 24hours.
