OKCredit rolls out hyperlocal search tool for medicines, COVID-19 critical equipment

Digital bookkeeping startup OkCredit has come up with a web-platform, Co-aid.in, to help people in distress discover verified leads for COVID-19 critical medicines and equipment.

The portal, a hyperlocal search tool, provides real-time information on the availability of medicines pan India besides the contact number of the store for making enquiries. With this, users can search for availability by either entering the location name or the pin-code on the portal.

The company is open-sourcing data of over 2 lakh pharmacy stores and businesses on its platform. These stores and businesses sell medical products and services such as Fabiflu tablets, oximeters, O2 beds, normal beds, steamers, antibiotics, zinc/vitamin, and oxygen used for treating COVID-19 patients. The data on oxygen and beds has been crowd sourced, whereas the data on medicines is from pharmacy stores on OkCredit’s platform.

Co-aid.in also allows pharmacy stores and businesses that are not on the OkCredit platform to register themselves on the website.

Within just 12 days of launching, the website claims to have seen queries from 342 towns and cities, within and outside India. Search queries have also come from New York, Singapore, Seattle and Los Angeles among a number of other international locations, said OKCredit in a statement. In India, the highest number of searches have come from Bengaluru, Delhi and Kolkata but smaller locations such as Panipat, Muzaffarpur and Ranchi have also used the tool to search for nearby pharmacy shops.

Harsh Pokharna, Co-founder and CEO, OkCredit, said, “People are overwrought with anxiety, fear and the unending feeling of helplessness amid rising COVID cases. This is a time for mutual collaboration and leveraging human connection to make the lives of Covid patients and their families a tad easier. At OkCredit, we are committed to leveraging our deeper and wider reach within the pharmacy stores and businesses to facilitate the availability of essential drugs and equipment used for treating COVID-19 patients.”

Besides the pharmacy search tool, OkCredit is also encouraging people to volunteer for COVID-19 SOS requests. Known as Co Aid Volunteer (seen at the top right on the Co-aid.in website), the platform lists out volunteering opportunities for people. These could be oxygen or bed requirements, medicine needs etc. One can search through COVID resources on various platforms to help out such people in need.

Additionally, OkCredit has tied up with Practo, an online doctor consultation app, to take care of their doctor consultations, COVID testing, priority support for ambulances, beds, medicines, mental wellness counselling, etc.