Throughout South Asia, Tech Start-ups Deliver COVID-19 Relief

​February 10, 2021—​As the COVID-19 vaccine cavalry readies itself for deployment, Delhi-based health tech entrepreneur Prashant Tandon is preparing for battle. Fighting the pandemic, he believes, depends on the organization, coordination, and delivery of an arsenal of health-related services and products. Getting the logistics right is critical not only to public health, he says—it's a chance to prove that partnerships across industries, the private sector and government produce results for everyone.

When the virus first reached India and the government imposed a strict lockdown, Tandon's company, the digital health platform 1mg, an IFC investee, went into what he calls "mission mode." Delivery drivers and front-line workers brought medicines to customers' doors and collected samples for a range of lab tests. As the pandemic progressed, the company also boosted telemedicine offerings to patients, collaborated with government regulatory agencies to clarify guidelines for e-pharmacies, and actively pursued partners in geographical areas where third-party logistics companies are not operational. It is now setting up a nationwide cold-chain infrastructure for COVID-19 vaccines.

Responding to COVID-19 in a country of over 1.3 billion people is forcing 1mg to rethink its core strategies—because this is a significant and important global disruption, not a one-time spike, said Tandon, the founder and CEO. 1mg is focused on how to mainstream technology into health-care services and related logistics to better track, monitor and deliver medicine and health products. "Right now, there's almost no traceability," Tandon said. "Things like soap and matchboxes have bar codes, but not medicines. When it comes to something as important as vaccines, we need an entirely traceable supply chain so we can be confident and comfortable."

As with 1mg, many other startups in the region are remaking themselves to respond to diverse COVID-19-related logistics needs. In India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, it is an "opportunity for local logistics networks to compete in local markets," according to Omera Khan, a Professor of Supply Chain Management at Royal Holloway, University of London.

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