Airtel partners Ghanaian technology company Sproxil to fight counterfeit drugs in Africa

An eHealth solution, Mobile Product Authentication™ (MPA™) by Ghanaian technology company Sproxil, will help consumers of medicines to verify product genuineness within seconds through a text message.

Telecoms company, Bharti Airtel has announced a partnership with Sproxil to offer the service to its customers across Africa for free.

According to Airtel, Sproxil’s service works by placing a scratch-off label on products, and then when consumers purchase a product, they scratch off the label to reveal a unique, random code. The code is then sent via SMS to a country-specific Toll Free short code, and the consumer receives a reply almost instantly indicating whether the product is genuine or not.

Commenting, Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel, Africa said, “Our goal is to bring affordable and easily accessible health services to over 450 million people. The battle against counterfeit drugs is a huge step towards this goal.”

MPA was developed by Ghanaian Dr. Ashifi Gogo, the CEO of Sproxil.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi