AuthentiPack
Counterfeit risk · Medicine packs · NigeriaISSUE 2026-08-24 · REF INDEX 5 ENTRIES

Photograph the pack. Get the risk, not a promise.

AuthentiPack reads the printed face of a medicine pack — the NAFDAC registration number, the batch code, the dates, the printing itself — and raises every risk flag it can find, each one with its reasoning attached. It has no “authentic” verdict. It cannot have one: a photograph cannot see inside a blister, and a false all-clear is the only failure here that kills someone.

Read this before the first scan

A photograph cannot prove a medicine is genuine. This is a risk flag, not a certificate. Confirm with the pharmacist, check the NAFDAC Greenbook, and report anything suspicious to NAFDAC.

INSTRUMENT IDLEAWAITING SPECIMEN

The rosette is drawn live. Every finding cuts a break into its line-work, the way a bad print gives a counterfeit away.

Clause 1 · Present the pack

No specimen

Photograph the printed face of the carton, blister, or bottle label — square on, filling the frame, without flash glare on the registration number.

This instance’s ledger
Packs read
—
Halted
—
Questioned
—
No flags raised
—

Counted on this instance only, from its local SQLite ledger. Nothing is sent anywhere else, and the photograph itself is never written to disk.

How it reads a pack

Five stages, in order. Only the first uses a model, and the first is not allowed to decide anything. Everything that produces a verdict is deterministic code you could read.

  1. 01

    Transcribe, never guess

    A vision model reads only what is actually printed on the pack. Fields it cannot read come back empty. A guessed registration number is worse than none, so guessing is forbidden at this stage — and this stage decides nothing.

  2. 02

    Test the number's shape

    The NAFDAC registration number is checked locally against the format printed on Nigerian packs: an optional one- or two-letter category block, one or two digits, a hyphen, four digits. There is no public check digit, so no arithmetic validation is invented.

  3. 03

    Cross-check the record

    A well-formed number is looked up in the local reference index. A number registered against a different product is a known falsification method, and it halts the reading. Absence from the index is never treated as evidence — the index is incomplete and says so.

  4. 04

    Test the dates against each other

    Expiry already passed. Manufacture dated after expiry. Batch number missing entirely. Re-dated and overprinted stock is one of the commonest ways falsified medicine reaches a shelf, and the arithmetic gives it away.

  5. 05

    Raise every flag, with its reasoning

    Each finding arrives named, graded, and explained in one sentence you can read aloud. A verdict you cannot interrogate is a verdict you cannot use standing in front of a seller who is waiting to be paid.

What the number is supposed to look like

This is the shape AuthentiPack tests. Learn it and you can run the first check yourself, with no phone at all.

A4-0123CATEGORY BLOCK0–2 letters, 1–2 digitsHYPHEN, ALWAYSFOUR-DIGIT SERIALnever three, never five
Also valid on packs

04-4567 · B4-8901 · A11-0234

The category block can be digits only. What never changes is the hyphen and the four digits after it.

And the honest part

A counterfeiter can print a correctly-shaped number as easily as a real one. Passing this check is not registration. It only means the number is not obviously fabricated — which is exactly how AuthentiPack reports it.

There is no authentic button.

Every other verification product in this category is selling certainty, because certainty is what people want to buy. This one refuses, and the refusal is the design. A wrong “halt” costs someone a trip back to the pharmacy. A wrong “authentic” costs a life.

I
It will never say “authentic”.
The word does not exist anywhere in this system: not in the model's instructions, not in the verdict set, not in the interface. There are three verdicts and none of them is a pass.
II
It will never show you a green tick.
A tick is a promise. The calmest result this instrument can produce is a sentence that begins “nothing in this image was flagged” and ends by telling you that is not the same as safe.
III
It will never hide its reasoning.
Every flag names what was observed, where, and why that is evidence. Structural, index and date checks run locally and are auditable line by line. The transcription came from a model and can be wrong — the result says so.
If a pack is flagged, reporting is the part that matters

Take the pack, the batch number, and the seller’s name to NAFDAC. One report is what pulls a bad batch out of every other buyer’s hands, and it is the only step in this whole process a photograph cannot do for you.

Questions

Can AuthentiPack tell me a medicine is genuine?
No, and it is built so that it cannot. A photograph shows the outside of a pack; it says nothing about what is inside the blister. The best verdict this instrument has is “no red flags found in this image”, and it prints the limit of that reading alongside every result.
What is a NAFDAC registration number?
It is the number NAFDAC — Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control — assigns to a product it has registered. It is printed on the pack, and on Nigerian packs it takes forms like 04-4567, A4-0123, B4-8901, or A11-0234: an optional one- or two-letter category block, one or two digits, a hyphen, then a four-digit serial.
Does a valid-looking number mean the drug is registered?
No. AuthentiPack checks the number's shape, which is a structural test. A counterfeiter can print a well-formed number as easily as a real one. Confirming that a number is actually registered means checking NAFDAC's own Greenbook records for that product.
What should I do if the instrument says HALT?
Do not buy the pack, and do not take it if you already have. Show the findings to the pharmacist and ask them to explain. Report the product, the seller, and the batch number to NAFDAC — reporting is what removes a bad batch from other people's hands.
Does my photograph get stored anywhere?
The photograph is sent to the reading stage, transcribed, and discarded — it is not written to disk. What is kept, in a local SQLite file on the server that runs this instance, is the transcription, the flags raised, and the verdict. There is no external database and no third-party service.
Who is this for?
A patient or caregiver standing at a pharmacy counter, a PPMV shop, or a market stall, deciding in the next few seconds whether to hand over money. Everything about it — one photograph, one round trip, a verdict legible at arm's length — is shaped by that moment.