Nigerian tracking and monitoring health tech startup, Chekkit has suspended its operations in Afghanistan following the political unrest in the country. This is almost a week after the startup announced a $500,000 pre-seed funding.
Chekkit is a Nigeria-based startup that focuses on ensuring product integrity across the value chain. The startup said in its announcement last week that it has helped protect consumers and producers in both Nigeria and Afghanistan from the dangers of counterfeit products over the past 2 years.
With its blockchain technology, Chekkit has an existing partnership with blockchain partner, Fantom Foundation who made was working with the Ministry of Health in Afghanistan to help the country with its pharma product counterfeiting problem.
It claimed to have tracked and verified 80,000 products in the country so far. Tosin Adelowo, CMO of Chekkit confirmed this to Nairametrics earlier today.
According to Tosin, “Our partners have exited the country and as such, it would be difficult to continue with our activities. For now, we have put things on hold and are observing how things turn out. We’re optimistic we can get things re-started in the future.”
A few days ago, the Islamic group, Taliban took control of the country’s capital and subsequently the President’s Palace in Kabul, marking an end of a 20-year old war led by US troops in Afghanistan almost two decades after they were driven from the government.
Chekkit and its partner are one of the many companies that have exited the country due to political unrest and especially because of future uncertainties. Many other international businesses and non-profit organizations have closed operations and evacuated their staff following the uncertainty arising from the sudden Taliban gains.
Analysts believe this will have a significant impact on the nation’s economy in both the long and immediate term.
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