The use of illegal drugs (also known as street drugs) has increased in Africa. Studies have found that people's limited financial means to seek medication from professional doctors are at the root of the phenomenon. With his solution, Adama Kane wants to enable poor families to have access to safe products without paying a penny.

Seven years ago, Adama Kane launched Jokkosanté, a digital community pharmacy solution, to allow more Senegalese to access quality medicines without necessarily spending money. Today, the service benefits thousands of people. It works on a system under which anyone who has leftover medicines that are still usable can deposit them in public health centers. Professionals in the centers will then sort the medicines and make them available to the neediest. The depositor must first have an account on the JokkoSanté mobile app, which, with each deposit, awards points that are equivalent to the value of the given medicine. The depositor can spend those points to acquire other medicines or transfer them to someone else.

For those who do not have medicines to exchange, JokkoSanté has set up a cross-funding mechanism. On the platform, companies, NGOs and associations can finance the donation of medicines to population segments of their choice. Recipients are informed by SMS of the name of their donating company. Such a system can enhance the visibility and social impact of companies.

JokkoSanté seeks to put an end to the waste of medicines; eliminate the illicit sale of medicines; and help the poorest populations to have better health. "I had my first child in 2013. A month before he was born, my wife and I were tidying up our room to make some space for him. I noticed when we were in the room that we had accumulated a lot of medicine boxes during the pregnancy, most of which we did not even use. So that’s how I had the idea of sharing my unused medicines with people who need them," Adama Kane explains.

The solution received seed funding from Orange to develop the beta application and launch the experimental phase. Orange also provided the startup with its service platforms for SMS and USSD exchanges. The service has won several awards, including the International Telecommunication Union's Recognition of Excellence certificate, the African Entrepreneurship Award for the best African project in an unexplored field, and environmental protection in 2015. In 2016, it won the Pierre Fabre Foundation's e-Health Observatory Award as well as the Grand Prize in all categories of the international e-Health Trophies competition organized by Castres-Mazamet Technopole.

Ruben Tchounyabe