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  Over 60,000 to 160,000 people die of food and drug poisoning annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone. This statistics was released by World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2020. The current spate of fake food and drugs in Africa is certainly alarming. Despite the concerted effort of the Nigerian government to eradicate counterfeit foods and drugs from Nigerian hospitals, drugstores and the marketplace, perpetrators of these crimes have often found their way to navigate rules and regulations that check out counterfeit foods and drugs. 
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However, some companies with the use of technology, have been able to manage and ameliorate these problems. One of such companies is Chekkit.  Founded in 2018 by Dare Odumade, Oluwatosin Adelowo, and Samuel Ukhueleigbe, Chekkit is a Nigerian-based company that employs blockchain technology to enable users to ascertain the authenticity of products before consuming them. The objective for Dare and his co-founders is to develop a seal of authenticity through Chekkit. This is enabled consumers to know the story of everything they consume. Interestingly, Chekkit has been doing this for the past five years. Since its inception, Chekkit has had has over 7 million pharmaceutical products sealed with its anti-fake sticker. The blockchain-enabled label has gone ahead in protecting over 300,000 consumers from counterfeit foods and drugs. Furthermore, Dare is on an enterprising and equally crucial task to grow Chekkit to become the leading product authentication and distribution tracking solution, not just for Africa alone but for the rest of the world.
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The beauty of using the Chekkit platform is its ease of use. It is appealing to consumers. They can ensure the validation of products through the Chekkit app by scanning barcodes or using USSD for confirmation. Likewise, Chekkit also furnishes insights on consumers to the manufacturers who can then decide to act on it by using rewards and loyalty programmes or upsell to customers. In the age of persisting flooding of fake drugs and food into African markets, Chekkit has been mitigating the management with the ChekkitApp, consumers can report a fake, expired, or bad product, which then affords Chekkit the necessary information to share with regulatory bodies and the product manufacturers. Furthermore, Chekkit has been able to extend its services to Afghanistan, with the backing of an international partner to deal with the region’s pharma product counterfeiting challenge. Finally, it is amazing to state that Chekkit is saving lives by simultaneously detecting, alerting, and enlightening consumers, manufacturers and policymakers from the minute fake or substandard drugs are detected. Featured image: HBS Online
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This article was first published on 28th January 2022 and updated on January 29th, 2022 at 7:09 pm

nnaemeka-emmanuel

Nnaemeka is an academic scholar with a degree in History and International Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is also a creative writer, content creator, storyteller, and social analyst.

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