Fantom announced their partnerships with Royal Star, Nabros Pharma, Bliss GVS & the Ministry of Health in Afghanistan on July 6th in a bid to track various medicines, one of which includes a Hand-Sanitizer promoted by WHO to combat COVID-19.
Under this arrangement, Fantom, with our technology partner Chekkit, is in the process of shipping labels to attach to pharmaceutical products produced by both Bliss GVS and Nabros Pharma. Royal Star will scan these labels at each step of the distribution process, with a hash of the data generated, timestamped, and saved on the Fantom Opera Chain to create an immutable audit trail. Royal Star will be able to ensure that the data is authentic by comparing the hash of the data to the hashes that exist on the blockchain.
Afghanistan has been fighting long wars on many fronts. One of them is their struggle with corrupt bureaucrats within their own structure and problems of counterfeit drugs. The public has no other means to ensure whether the medicine they are taking is genuine or not. They cannot afford to go abroad due to the economic conditions of the country. Local Public has gone on to blame the corrupt officials and security forces in being complicit in the counterfeit operation or at the least in not taking steps to counter the issue. Irreparable damage to the image of doctors and medical professionals has been done as various doctors are also suspected of the crime.
In a measure to fight the issue of fake, sub-standard, expired drugs, Afghanistan has given permission to Fantom Foundation (along with their partners including Indian based Bliss GVS, Nabros Pharma, and Afghanistan based Royal Star) to employ their Blockchain Project to start tracking number of Medicines. Fantom Foundation will be responsible for labeling these medicines (with a unique Hash Code) and every time the labeled product is scanned by Royal Star the below details will be timestamped on their Blockchain.
A hash is a non-reversible mathematical function that generates an alphanumeric string that does not contain the data but allows individuals to verify whether the data provided is the same as that from which the hash is calculated.
Each labeled item will contain a unique hash generated by eleven data points:
- Product name
- Batch no.
- Barcode no.
- Expiry date
- Production date
- FDA no.
- Producer’s name
- Location of scan
- Status of scan
- Time
- Date of scan
Further at various stages of scanning, this data will be verified thus ensuring the authenticity of the medicines.
This issue has been responsible due to the complete failure in the Supply Chain of the country and with their Blockchain Technology, Fantom hopes to resolve it.
This program is the first application of blockchain in Afghanistan; we are so happy to be applying it in the health sector to stop counterfeit drugs by making it easy to track pharmaceutical products. It’s an important project for our nation, and we fully endorse it. After the pilot program, we will hold a celebration ceremony and support the initiative further moving forward.
-Dr. Ghulam Sayed Rashed, Executive Director of National Medicine & Health Care Products Regulatory Authority.
IMO I find myself being bullish on FTM for the long term. Their staking rewards are also very well according to market standards right now with an annual APY of 37%.
