Indian startup StaTwig develops blockchain solution for tracking vaccine shipments

Indian entrepreneur Siddart Chakravarti is developing a blockchain application that will help India track the complete supply chain of vital vaccines.

As reported
Times of India, according to research reports
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2018 at least 20 million children around the world did not receive vaccines to save against diphtheria, tetanus and measles, due to transportation problems and spoilage of vaccines.

Former Cisco employee and entrepreneur Siddarth Chakravarty says most vaccines get damaged during shipping due to frequent temperature fluctuations. In the past, market participants in the pharmaceutical and food industries solved the problem of spoilage with the help of data loggers that signaled the temperature fluctuations of drugs or food products by changing colors.

These devices, however, have been shown to be ineffective, as they cannot indicate the exact time or place where the temperature change occurred. To put an end to the problem of poor vaccine delivery, Chakravarti launches the StaTwig startup, whose main task is to develop a reliable solution based on blockchain and Internet of things (IoT). Chakravarti notes that the solution will track the supply of vaccines at all stages – from the manufacturing plant to health centers.

In this way, vaccine manufacturers will be able to track supply chains in real time and, if necessary, make improvements. In addition, this will complicate the fraud of fake vaccines. Chakravarti stated:

“They will not only be able to track their batch and will know when it was delivered, the solution helps them predict when they will receive the next order.”

Last year, it was reported that UNICEF funded
Six blockchain startups, including StaTwig. Recently there was information that the FDA, IBM and Merck will implement
blockchain in the drug supply chain. In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced for the first time plans to use blockchain to increase the effectiveness of its drug supply chain in February 2019, expecting to launch the platform by 2023.