Bharti Airtel is set to launch a SMS-based drug-authentication service in Kenya, the first stage of a broad deployment across the group’s 17 African markets. Andre Beyers, chief marketing officer of Airtel Africa, told Mobile Health Live that a commercial launch will happen “in the next few weeks”.  

The operator announced a partnership with Sproxil  to deploy its drug-authentication service a fortnight ago but without disclosing its launch plans. In fact the first commercial launch will be in Kenya where Bharti Airtel and Sproxil will offer it on behalf of an unnamed pharmaceutical supplier.

Given the level of counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical industry in Africa, drug authentication services are seen as potentially a major market for mobile health.

Bharti Airtel is looking to deploy the service across its 17-country footprint in African and “will look at other areas globally in the not-too-distant future,” said Beyers. The group's other markets include India and Bangladesh.

The operator is keen to push ahead with the service. “We are just about ready in one market [Kenya] and then one after that. So in less than one month we will be up and running,” said Beyers without specifying the second market to launch.

The operator is still relatively new to the mobile health market but has ambitions to grow. Earlier this year the operator outlined its plans to launch a medical helpline service as well as the drug-authentication service.

The helpline service will launch commercially first in Malawi offering general health advice and in Sierra Leone where it will initially be focused on offering advice about cholera. The country has been hit by an serious outbreak of the disease. Both these launches are scheduled for September. The operator will then follow with a country-by-country approach to other markets.