OkCredit has announced the launch of a website – Co-aid.in to help people in distress discover verified leads for Covid-19 critical medicines and equipment.
The portal provides real-time information on the availability of medicines pan India besides the contact number of the store for making enquiries. Users can search for availability by either entering the location name or the pincode on the portal.
At a time when getting Covid-19 medicines is an onerous task, the initiative is aimed at helping people access such medicines easily by knowing where they are available, the company said.
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.
OkCredit has plans to further enhance this simple and easy-to-use portal in the coming days and append it with other Covid critical resources available in the public domain. Co-aid.in also allows pharmacy stores and businesses that are not on the OkCredit platform to register themselves on the website.
Within 12 days of launching, the website has 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, the company added.
In India, 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.
Besides the pharmacy search tool, OkCredit is also encouraging people to volunteer for Covid-19 SOS requests. Known as Co Aid Volunteer, 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.
OkCredit co-founder and CEO Harsh Pokharna 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.”
OkCredit is also giving high priority to the welfare of its employees as well. The company recognises that mental health of employees is a crucial factor in their overall health. Towards this, it is making mental wellness counselling available to them.
Additionally, OkCredit has tied up with Practo to take care of their doctor consultations, covid testing, priority support for ambulances, beds, medicines, mental wellness counseling, etc.
The company is also encouraging employees to take time off to take care of themselves and family. It is not counting any time off in the month of May as “official leaves”.
