Afghanistan Ministry of Health to use Blockchain Technology

Sydney, Australia, Might 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The rollout in Afghanistan shall be boosted by regional enlargement, and Fantom will concurrently provide its options throughout Central Asia.

Counterfeit Medication: a Dangerous Enterprise 

Knowledge revealed by the Medication Importers Union means that a minimum of 40% of medicines and medical products enter Afghanistan illegally. What’s extra, nearly all of these medication are counterfeit or substandard. Unwitting patrons of counterfeit medicines threat extended sickness, drug resistance, or a lot worse.

This concern, after all, will not be native to Afghanistan. Fantom’s elevated regional presence will tackle each native counterfeit manufacturing and imports of fraudulent medical items.

The Improvement and Testing of Fantom Tracker

Fantom Tracker integrates the Nigeria-based Chekkit Applied sciences’ scanning and verification instruments with Fantom’s Opera blockchain. Immutable and blazingly quick, Opera secures producer and supply-chain knowledge and communicates it to customers and shoppers scanning Chekkit’s tamper-proof labels. 

In an preliminary pilot part, Fantom merchandise have been rigorously examined in Afghanistan by companions:

• Royal Star Pharma: Afghanistan’s largest importer and distributor of medical items
• Bliss GVS Pharma: A big, publicly-traded medical items producer primarily based in Mumbai, India
• Nabros Pharma: A privately held, India-based producer of prescription drugs and nutraceuticals

Throughout testing, retailers and shoppers used Fantom instruments to confirm the authenticity of upwards of 80,000 private and medical objects. Knowledge gathered by Royal Star Pharma indicated fast adoption by a basic public eager for reassurance concerning the security of their purchases.

Fantom is now seeking to implement a nationwide rollout to trace 210 million items specializing in high-volume essential objects like vaccines and COVID take a look at kits. 

Utilizing Fantom Tracker

The Fantom Tracker answer shall be distributed on an open-source foundation, permitting any pharmaceutical enterprise to make use of the product. To make sure product verifiability, producers merely must affix a tamper-proof label provided by Chekkit to drug packaging: when scanned, the label recollects important product data, together with expiry date, registration quantity, and extra, all of which is saved on the immutable Fantom blockchain. 

Crucially, the Fantom answer is straightforward for the general public to make use of. All prospects must do is to take away the scratch-off sticker from the Chekkit label. This reveals:  

• A QR code that may be scanned on an internet-enabled cell phone with the Chekkit app, and
• A pin code for customers with out web connectivity. By calling an area telephone quantity and getting into the code, customers can entry the identical knowledge accessible by means of the app 

Whether or not by way of web app or telephone, prospects are instantly served details about product authenticity. When a counterfeit is detected, Fantom good expertise instantly notifies the retailer, producer, and acceptable authorities companies. 

The Afghanistan Initiative and Past

Implementation of the Fantom Tracker is a serious a part of the continued partnership between Fantom and the Afghanistan Ministry of Well being. Beneath what they’ve known as the Nationwide Medical Importation Safety Initiative, the events will proceed to work collectively to develop complete options to the counterfeit drug concern.  

Following the Ministry of Well being announcement, Fantom CEO Michael Kong mentioned: “Fantom goes to play a serious position in addressing a continual public-health concern. In South Asia, workforce members Barek Sekandari, Samuel Harcourt, Jawid Sikandar, Jakub Stepanik, and their groups performed a serious position in making certain that we developed a customizable and sturdy product for the pilot program. I’m grateful to the Afghanistan Ministry of Well being for permitting us to exhibit our scalable and user-friendly answer.”

The launch in Afghanistan represents step one that the Fantom Basis is taking to deal with a worldwide phenomenon. In line with a World Well being Group research, faux medication comprise nearly 10% of the worldwide medication market, a determine that means a market of almost $40 billion. After providing its answer regionally, Fantom will tackle different worldwide markets in a broader effort to finish vulnerabilities throughout the world provide chain.

Media Contact:

Simone Pomposi
Fantom Basis
pr@fantom.basis
https://fantom.foundation