Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 17 countries across Africa, on Monday announced a partnership with Sproxil to combat the counterfeit drug market in Africa.
Sproxil’s Mobile Product Authentication solution allows consumers to verify product genuineness within seconds through a text message.
Airtel will offer this service absolutely free to its users and not charge for any SMS-based verification.
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.