Adoption of Blockchain Technology Framework for Addressing Counterfeit Drugs Circulation

Abstract

Counterfeit drugs are a problem both in developed and developing countries. Nigeria is a developing country experiencing the problem of counterfeit drugs and as such is the use case for this research work. The negative effects counterfeit drugs have on human health and economy of the country calls for urgent attention. One amongst many reasons why counterfeit drugs are still in circulation in Nigeria is the unmonitored drug distribution system. Drugs throughout their shelf life moves from one owner to another, from the importer/manufacturer to Distributor, wholesaler to government/private healthcare sectors and then to the patients. The current drug distribution system in Nigeria is a manually, unmonitored system, where the regulatory agency body National Agency for Food and Drug Administration control (NAFDAC) does not have detailed record on the movement of drugs from either the importer or manufacturer to the patient in the system. In this study blockchain technology framework that can handle the drug distribution chain was discussed, since blockchain technology offers immutability, transparency and tamper proof, it functionalities are what intrigued the study as it can help monitor the movement of drug in the distribution chain. The proposed system is a prototype demonstrating the hashing mechanism with a deployed smart contract and how it can help in showing the authenticity of a drug. The blockchain framework is a private blockchain, where participants on the network are permitted to have access to the network by the regulatory agency. The system was evaluated based on it’s effectiveness from users reports using the security, user friendly, response time, flexibility, data integrity checks, robust, hashing mechanism functional as the benchmark. The actual test result equates the expected test result, showing that the system is efficient.