WellaHealth, a Nigerian healthtech startup, has launched Healthsend Africa in Kenya. This announcement comes after the launch of the subsidiary in Nigeria in June 2023.

Healthsend says it expanded to Kenya because it has a large and significant diasporan community with healthcare challenges similar to the Nigerian market. It also has strong ties with Kenya’s local health and technology ecosystem.

“We have willing partners helping us make it easier to serve the loved ones of Kenyans living in the diaspora. After our launch in Nigeria, some Kenyans living abroad kept asking when we would launch in their country. We are now delighted to go live in Kenya to serve them.”

Immigrants can use the service to top up a website wallet system and pay for many healthcare services the company offers for their family members in Nigeria and Kenya. The service is available to immigrants in the United States, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.

Immigrants send money home, also known as remittances, to support their families, which helps to alleviate poverty and improve well-being. Remittances to Africa more than doubled in the last ten years, surpassing foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assistance (ODA) funding, and reached $100 billion in 2022.

A 2022 World Bank Migration and Development report estimates that sub-Saharan Africa received $49 billion in remittances in 2021. Nigeria’s substantial diaspora population contributes significantly to remittance inflows, with Ghana, Kenya, and Senegal following.

Though the CEO of WellaHealth, Neto Ikpeme, initially launched Healthsend Africa to address his family’s difficulty in accessing high-quality medication and care, the company also did so to take advantage of the diaspora’s potential to improve local access to healthcare.

Consequently, immigrants can buy medicine or health plans, including health insurance, for loved ones in Nigeria. However, for now, they can only obtain services related to authentic prescription medication purchases for chronic illnesses such as diabetes for their loved ones in Kenya…

Content retrieved from: https://techpoint.africa/2023/10/24/healthsend-enters-kenya-facilaitate-healthcare/.